Diego Marcon’s La Gola, translating to “the belly,” or more roughly, “the throat,” is an epistolary film that demonstrates the ability of language to convey powerful emotion when expression and visual indicators are implicit. La Gola captures its audience through Marcon’s poetic and calculated employment of vernacular and auditory devices. The film follows an exchange of letters between two characters, Gianni and Rossana. One character reminisces on the “art of flavour,” while the other retells excruciating experiences with her dying mother.

La Gola enforces a sensory overload through Marcon’s deliberate language choices, archetypal French overture music, and illustrative descriptions of tastes and scents. The film is an exploration of melodrama, using the stark difference between the two stories to create a cinematic narrative. Made using a combination of digital effects and mannequins, La Gola shifts the visual focus that has become synonymous with Marcon’s artistic practice towards a greater emphasis on language as a structural and narrative tool.