The 883 TV series is as fun and nostalgic as one of their songs
In December 1995 Max Pezzali and Mauro Repetto were 28 and 27 years old respectively when they released their last song together, Gli Anni. A nostalgic song, which speaks of times gone by with affection, tenderness and a pinch of irony (but with “no regrets, no remorse”, to name another): in short, a song that one would expect at least from two forty-year-olds, more than by two boys in the prime of their youth.
That nostalgia, that tenderness and that irony are found, now that Max and Mauro have passed the age of 50, in They Killed Spider-Man – The Legendary Story of the 883, the TV series in 8 episodes, directed by Sydney Sibilia, in released on Sky (Sky Serie channel) and NOW from Friday 11 October, starring Elia Nuzzolo and Matteo Oscar Giuggioli in the role of Pezzali and Repetto. The series tells the story of the birth of one of the most iconic bands on the Italian music scene of the last thirty-odd years, 883, and if you want to know more, follow us in this review.
The interview with Mauro Repetto
What is it about? They killed Spider-Man
The series begins with a prologue set in Germany at the end of the 19th century, where a boy who failed at school is punished by his father who forces him to follow him to Pavia for the summer. Almost a century later, at the Copernico high school in Pavia, it is Massimo Pezzali who fails, and his father punishes him by forcing him to work in the family flower shop all summer.
Massimo has a perfectly rational explanation for his failure, an explanation that has to do with a cassette (for the younger ones: a physical medium on which songs were recorded) that he accidentally found and which made his passion for music explode , for English punk in particular.
As in an oriental proverb, or as in a domino effect, that cassette caused too many punk evenings, and therefore the rejection, and therefore the punishment of the parents, and without revealing too much let’s say that in the new high school where he will end up, Max he will end up becoming Mauro’s classmate. The rest is history, or rather the rest is the story of this series which we will not reveal to you so as not to give spoilers, but take a look at the official trailer before moving on to our opinion on They Killed Spider-Man.
Sydney Sibilia: “To understand 883 you have to start from punk. Our series came out well because it’s sincere”
If you love 883, you can’t miss this series
If, like us, you have loved 883 since their debut with the song that gives the title to this series, you absolutely cannot miss They Killed Spider-Man. Because it has within it all those fun and at the same time sentimental notes that distinguish the music of Pezzali and Repetto: friends, girls, America (but first England) as opposed to the province embodied by Pavia. And lots of music, obviously.
They Killed Spider-Man makes you smile with its quotes and its characters – oh Cisco, how we wish we were your friends when we were kids – but above all it warms the heart with that nostalgia effect that every self-respecting 883 fan must love.
We are immediately moved by hearing Nuzzolo’s voice which seems so similar, with its sibilant ones (perhaps due to the prosthesis), to that of Max. We identify with his desire for freedom, in the energy that he and Mauro they are released when they make music, and also in the insecurities of two boys from Pavia who enter the world of entertainment.
And we laugh tenderly at their naivety as normal kids, which was also ours at the time. This series manages, in practice, to reproduce in images the sensations and emotions triggered by listening to the 883: viewing, if you have loved songs like Con un deca and Nord southwest est, is therefore mandatory.
Rating: 8