Corsica - the granite mountain in the sea. This fabled, wild island
has a long history of invasion, resistance, unhappy subjection, counter-invasion and war.
On this bewitching island are the mazzeri,
D R E A M - H U N T E R S
who live by night and hunt in dreams... as well as the real.
The mazzeri, with dark beginnings and dark words, begins with a phantom funeral procession, known as the Squadra d’Arrozza.
Figures draped in black or white, who, from a distance seem like human beings; but on closer inspection their features become hazed akin to a mirage on a blisteringly hot day, or as if such heat and light were exposed to a worn-out film. Bearing a coffin and lighted tapers, they march towards the house of the occupant who is to die and call their name, but they are the only person not to hear them.
It is said one must never accept the tapers they offer, as these will turn out to be the limbs of dead children, and to accept one, is to become a mazzere.
As the veillée ends and family, friends, neighbours take their leave to go to sleep; the mazzeri slip out into the dark. Their purpose is to kill, not people, but animals - wild or domestic. And just for the briefest moment in these animal faces they may see the face of a living person, who ultimately must die within a years time, and always on an uneven number of days.
This dream-world of the mazzeri presents a bewildering intertwining of the possible and the impossible.
The mazzeri who must only truly hunt in the fantasy realm of their dreams, for who can go out and night and kill wild animals? But, when speaking of the mazzeri the usual distinctions between the real, factual world and the fictional, fantasy world of the ‘other’ or ‘parallel’ world must be discarded.
Nietzsche said “a dream is the fulfilment of a wish”…
…what does a mazzeri wish for?
