Ammaniti wrote the novel Anna in 2015, basing it on a classic “what would happen if”, and, specifically, “if there were only children left in the world“. As a former biologist, to eliminate adults he thought of a very contagious and deadly virus, which in pre-adolescents remains dormant until puberty. The grown-ups all die, the children survive for a limited time. As stated in a warning preceding each episode, Anna, TV series (on Sky and NOW from 23 April), had started shooting six months before the current pandemic. In short, interpreting it in a Covid key is a strong temptation, but it would be a mistake.
Post-apocalyptic Sicily
The novel is adapted with great freedom: the setting remains, a semi-destroyed post-apocalyptic Sicily, the protagonist Anna (Giulia Dragotto), who must find her little brother Astor (Alessandro Pecorella), kidnapped by the blue band. But on the whole the events are reworked from start to finish.
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Ammaniti wrote the screenplay (with Francesca Manieri), he followed the choice of locations and the casting, he is a director: he basically acted as a showrunner and the results can be seen, at least in terms of stylistic coherence of the whole.
After two initial episodes a bit weak, overburdened by the need to introduce the characters, explain the virus and set the story in motion, Anna finds her best moments in the central part, for example, in the sequences set in Villa Valguarnera (Bagheria), spectacular set for the surreal operational headquarters of the blues, where the very evil Angelica exercises her reign of terror, a queen of hearts from Alice in Wonderland with an obsession with reality shows.
Limits: search for lyricism and pathos at all costs
Anna it is a remarkable productive effort, and the courage to go all the way in narrating a wild and ruthless world must be recognized. However, some of the vices remain – can we now call them Ammanitism? – which also burdened the previous one The miracle: in particular the search for lyricism and pathos at all costs, in the script and in the direction and in the music.