Clerici takes what could be a fascinating process and renders it crushingly dull in this fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Hand Gestures may prove useful as a historical and practical record of the foundry’s craftsmanship, but it has almost no value as a piece of entertainment. It plays like an extended informational video from a museum, yet oddly, offers hardly any insight into the sculptural techniques or the artists’ materials.

For a film about sculpture, Hand Gestures seems to have undergone no sculpting itself; it is simply a tedious, virtually language free over-the-shoulder gaze at the creation of a single bronze statue.

Long at 77 minutes, Hand Gestures succeeds only in conveying and recreating the laboriousness of the labours it documents.

RATING: 1/5

INFORMATION

CAST: NA

DIRECTOR: Francesco Clerici

WRITER: Francesco Clerici

SYNOPSIS: This documentary follows the process of creating one of Velasco Vitali’s famous dog sculptures, from wax to glazed bronze, at the Battaglia Artistic Foundry in Milan.