The Interview

by Manuele Fior, Manuele Fior

This graphic novel is set in Italy in 2048. Raniero is a fifty-something psychologist whose marriage is failing. In the sky, strange bright triangles appear, bearing mysterious messages from an extraterrestrial civilization. Dora, his young patient, is part of the "New" Convention, a movement of young people preaching free love and alternative models to coupling and family. She declares that her telepathic abilities can parse the signal — a warning of some kind. Initially skeptical, Raniero’s curiosity and attraction grows. The Interview is a science fiction novel that eschews the stars in favor of the delicate, fragile, interior world of human emotion.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction, Fiction, Bande Dessinée, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy

180 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2013

About the author

Manuele Fior is an Italian cartoonist and illustrator. He was born in Cesena in 1975 and studied architecture at the University of Venice. He worked as an architect, illustrator and comic book artist in Berlin, Oslo and Paris. He currently lives in Venice.
Fior has received recognition for his comics since the 1990s. His most recent graphic novels 5,000 KM Per Second (2009), The Interview (2013), Blackbird Days (2016), Celestia (2021) and Hypericon (2022) have been translated in English by Fantagraphics. His illustration work has been featured in The New Yorker, Le Monde, Vanity Fair, Sole 24 Ore, Internazionale, Rolling Stone Magazine, Les Inrocks.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Interview is a “soft” science-fiction story set in 2048 in Italy. To say it is soft is to tie it to the humanistic tendencies of Ray Bradbury versus a “hard” science direction. There are space alien contacts in this story, via some triangles some people see in the sky at night, not very well defined, but that isn’t that important, really, because the important focus in this story is on intergenerational conflicts. A revolution is taking place in 2048, and a new generation is changing its approach to loving relationships and family. In particular, the younger generation focuses on a kind of (nineteen) sixties kind of polyamory sexual revolution, but there are also wider social issues addressed (briefly).

A young woman is hospitalized by her parents for her sexual mores and also some apparent “hallucinations,” which is to say she is aware of extra-terrestrial contacts. Her psychiatrist, whose wife is leaving him, is in the older generation, but he also has some awareness of “alien contact” that allows him to be open to the young woman’s revolutionary views. They connect as friends (and lovers), post-therapeutic relationship, so admittedly on one level it is a kind of May-December relationship, but the epilogue, which is an interview with the now 130 year old woman, makes it clear that the relationship featured some enduring memories of love.

The art by Italian Fior is wonderful, ethereal, black and white, and the story is either sweet or annoying, depending on your view of the older man-younger woman connection, which is in my opinion more spiritual—she has telepathic connections with him—than physical. I think the story is about the necessity of an older generation to keep its heart open to social change, even to revolution, and to love. The young woman pushes him to open his heart to the world. Telepathy? Another word for intuition and understanding between humans, maybe. I can see some might see the learning of the old (man) through the young (woman) as a cliché, but (as an older male?!) I am leaning to feeling generosity about the affirmation of beauty here. 3.5, leaning to 4 for the art and the message. I really never fully understood what the triangles were about it, but as I said, its a generation tale more than a science fiction tale.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Manuele Fior is an outstanding artist. The Interview is a gorgeous book, filled with striking black and white artwork. However, it's story leaves a lot to be desired. It's supposed to be a science fiction about aliens communicating with humans and how telepathy changes us, but really it's about a middle age dude who has a fling... with a former therapy patient. Ugg. UGG. May-December romances are hard to write. Well, no they aren't if you have a sense of humanity for people that aren't middle age white dudes. If you think younger women are actual people with feelings and emotions that matter. The characters in this book don't treat women as actual people and add nothing new to the literary canon. You can have characters who aren't good people, but you need to do something interesting with them. Middle age dude has sex with a younger lady who was his patient (seriously, gross) because she's a free spirit and believes in polyamory until she meets him? Then he wanders off? Ugg. Nope. Noping the hell out of this one.

Oh, and don't think I am dismissing the scifi elements. They were weak at best, mostly incoherent, and added nothing to the story :l

[stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una historia particular, en el 2048, Italia. La gente comienza a notar los cambios de los nuevos movimiento y un grupo de personas comienza a ver ciertas situaciones extrañas que implican la comunicación con seres extraños. Una historia que está entre el filo de la utopía y distopía.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully drawn, dreamlike story, with the slight disinfectant smell and imminent threat of JG Ballard.

[Gorab · Rating 2 out of 5]

felt the plot a bit convoluted.
Aliens enabled telepathy powers in few humans.

That was the only sci-fi part.
More focus was on emotions and relations of a couple in troubled marriage, with the husband getting attracted to a much younger patient.

What I didn't like was there were too many wasted pages, without any dialogue or any significant art, not contributing anything towards the plot or "prose" (in graphical sense!)

[Elisa Pierandrei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magistralmente eseguita.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I honestly feel completely ambivalent about this. It read as a male fantasy to me (an older guy hooks up with a younger girl who doesn't believe in monogamy until *wait for it* for falls for him, ugh - OH and she was his psych patient) and I'm just not here for that.

Fior's art is beautiful, as it always is. I especially like his character designs and how varied they are. There's a thematic thread of different generations accept or reject change of the status quo which was woven in nicely, but it still couldn't make me care about the rest of the story.

[Javier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una historia absorbente que coge temas como el choque generacional, la gentrificación de las ciudades o la cuestión medioambiental y las proyecta al futuro cercano, imaginando la sociedad que ya está tomando el relevo de la nuestra. Con unos toques de ciencia ficción en plan primer contacto (y otras cosas que no quiero desvelar) y un dibujo expresivo, misterioso e imposible de olvidar. El cierre se me hizo un tanto precipitado, pero lo compensa un epílogo que aclara lo justo, sin entrar en moralinas y dejando parte del trabajo al lector. Todo un descubrimiento.

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

High concept futuristic dystopia, in the remnants of Italy, wherein alien contact has enabled telepathy among humans. The art is black and white (sometimes entirely black), and the presentation is somewhat murky.

Throw in a mid-life crisis, a failing marriage, a home invasion, "disunification," and unexplained visions — hallucinations? projections of the subconscious?

Not an easy, or a comfortable read. The story line was either deliberately obscured, or (less charitably) under-developed.

Rounding this up to 3 stars, because of the ambition, if not the realization.

[Monica Go · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I started this and had no idea where it was going, what would be the main point. I still don't know. Probably more than one.

What I know is that the art, the style was unique in its simplicity; the visual effects of it also caught my attention (the scene of the girl on the train rails comes to mind).

The plot was confusing because I didn't know what to focus my attention on and maybe felt a little disappointing at the end. The telepathy concept was interesting, but not too clear.

Overall really really enjoyed it.

[Titus · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a whole lot of fiction out there about middle-class men going through mid-life crises. It's not exactly a genre in its own right, but it's certainly a subject that's been tackled from all different angles – from the low-brow to the high-brow, from the comedic to the tragic. Unsurprisingly, there's significant backlash: not just because it's such well trodden territory, but also on the grounds that the topic isn't particularly worthy. When the world is full of war, famine, illness, poverty, prejudice and other evils, many people understandably find it hard to care about the ennui and failing marriages of wealthy old men.

There's no denying that The Interview by Manuele Fior falls 100% into this tradition: it is, first and foremost, about its privileged protagonist's mid-life crisis. Moreover, as in many such works, the protagonist becomes involved with a younger woman – a red flag for the naysayers, inviting criticism for indulging male fantasy and being reductive in its depiction of women. This is compounded by said female character's eccentricity (and possible mental illness), which brings her close to the idealized stereotype of the "manic pixie dream girl" and makes the protagonist's interest in her kind of creepy.

Basically, if the above descriptions fill you with disgust, outrage or disinterest towards this work, you should avoid it. However, I personally enjoy fiction about existential crises, and I like sad, lonely, flawed, dysfunctional protagonists. Maybe it’s a result of my own privilege, but I find these subjects just as compelling and worthwhile as any other.

Moreover, this isn't a cookie-cutter midlife crisis story. It stands out from the crowd in terms of both content and form. It's weird and mysterious, veering fully into science fiction (though retaining a very human core). It's also loose, enigmatic and open-ended in a quintessentially European way, always trusting in the reader's intelligence. Most strikingly, this comic looks gorgeous. The way Fior draws faces didn't appeal to me at first, but I was quickly won over by his gorgeously fluid and expressive greyscale artwork – not to mention his impeccable grasp of composition and panel-to-panel storytelling.

Through its formal qualities, its beautiful art and its powerful atmosphere, this comes close to being truly great. Certainly, I was thoroughly captivated while reading, and frequently wowed. I was even compelled to give it a second and third read-through. Unfortunately, with subsequent readings I started to feel that the loose storytelling style creates an illusion of greater depth than there really is. This – combined with the clichéd, problematic female character at the story’s centre – prevents The Interview from being one of my all-time favourites. Nonetheless, it's an excellent comic that's left me eager to read more of Fior's work.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2048, the way the world works changes forever. And by that, I mean the way humans interact with each other. Presumably, the actual earth still works the same way since gravity, light, energy, all that stuff seems unaffected.

In 2048, fashion in Italy is a little different, as is architecture. Self-driving cars are a real thing but Raneiro, a psychologist whose marriage is ending, likes to drive the old-fashioned gas kind and one night, something gets into him and he decides to beat a train over the tracks, loses control and wrecks his car.


As he stumbles free of his broken vehicle, he sees odd geometrically shaped lights in the sky and they bring out a sort of euphoria in him, though it could be argued, at this point, he's hysterical from stress and a possible head wound when he breaks down laughing in a field.
It's not stress and it's not from the accident.

It's the lights.
They heighten peoples' emotions, presumably the emotions those people suppress hardest. They are an interview.

Raneiro is all angles and squares. He is in the medical field and while not everything is black and white, there are explanations for all human perceptions and reactions. He interviews Dora, a patient admitted to the hospital by her parents due to her involvement in the "New Convention" which is really just another free love movement, who is all rounded lines and circles. She doesn't want to talk about no-strings-attached sex with many partners, she wants to talk about the aliens with whom she's been communicating and that she knows Raneiro has also experienced.
The two form an odd bond. He's older, stiff, and his life isn't going the way he'd expected. She's young and free with an open mind. She seems crazy but he feels like he's gone crazy.
The reader finds out, at the end, via an interview, just what happened and how the way humans interact started changing that year.

It's a quiet story and the illustrations are dreamy-realistic, not really real for the most part, sort of hazy, but then a knee or a facial expression is spot on to create a lovely, soothing effect.

[Arbe · Rating 3 out of 5]

El arte de Fior es impresionante, como siempre, pero esta vez la historia no me ha gustado. Hay momentos de gran belleza visual, que hablan de grandes conceptos, pero al final, la esencia de todo es la relación "romántica" del protagonista cincuentón con una mujer mucho más joven, que además es su paciente. No me ha convencido su vínculo en absoluto, no entiendo por qué suceden ciertas cosas ni por qué no se explora más a fondo cualquiera de las tramas presentadas (ciencia ficción, modernidad vs tradición, romance... etc.) Y aunque puede que esa fuera la intención del autor, el efecto de tanta elipsis narrativa y rebuscada ambigüedad no resulta, como en otras ocasiones, nada satisfactorio.

[Sardonyx · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very interesting. The art style made the characters fun to look at.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diferente, ameno y ágil. Aunque de hace unos años la trama tiene sentido actualmente

[Suni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dopo i colori vivaci di Cinquemila chilometri al secondo Fior passa a un acquerello in bianco e nero (ma quasi caldo, leggermente seppiato) per una storia sci-fi ambientata nel 2048, con le auto teleguidate (che a dire il vero comparivano già alla fine dell'opera precedente), la telepatia e gli avvistamenti degli extraterrestri, restando però sempre in una dimensione ridotta, provinciale (la storia si snoda tra Udine e Cividale del Friuli, di cui è impossibile non riconoscere il Ponte del Diavolo) e focalizzando la sua attenzione sull'individuo, qui uno psicoterapeuta di mezza età in crisi matrimoniale e personale, a cui vanno stretti i princìpi della vecchia società e si trova suo malgrado a condividere le spinte innovative portate avanti dai giovani e che hanno già condotto a una rivoluzione («i moti del 2021»).
Applausi sia per la trama, con tanto di finale con salto temporale a cento anni dopo, sia per i disegni, dove le geometrie (che hanno tutto un senso che va scoperto) si amalgamano ai paesaggi naturali e urbani, con un'attenzione particolare alle architetture che rimanda al passato dell'autore.
Sensazione: pare un film di Antonioni.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was kind of boring I guess. It tries to be a bit mysterious in the plot but it just came off a bit scattered and underdeveloped in areas.

[Travis Duke · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5) Delightful and beautiful in terms of style and concept. Manuele Fior brings sort of an odd mix of sci-fi and romance to this futuristic story but it blends wonderfully in my opinion. The book follows a middle aged man who has a pretty bad week and ends up meeting a younger girl who changes his life, trite i know, but the mixing of sci-fi in subtle ways makes the story somewhat softer and intriguing. Some of the story is left ambiguous and I think it fits the story well, a little mystery is nice. The art is fantastic, its black and white and has very soft but dynamic panels. The landscape panels are awesome so minimal and soft but beautiful. I really enjoyed this.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eu havia lido e ouvido muitas críticas falando imensamente bem dos álbuns em quadrinhos de Manuele Fior. Precisava, então, conferir. O trabalho de Fior é estupendo, não apenas no enredo, metafísico, filosófico, surrealista, que implanta diversas dúvidas divertidas e contemporizadoras nos leitores, mas também na forma como ele usa a sua arte para contar a história. Principalmente na forma como apresenta a presença alienígena na história, através dos padrões geométricos cuja ideia e realização surgiu de sua colaboradora. A arte de Fior é uma mescla entre realismo e cartunismo, bem como é a sua ficção um pouco realista e um tanto nonsense. O traço de Fiori me lembrou do nosso talentoso quadrinista brasileiro Wagner William, que também possui essa capacidade de assombro e verossimilhança nos seus traços e nos seus enredos. Ler e admirar esta história em quadrinhos, A Entrevista, de Manuele Fior, foi uma jornada muito recompensadora, nem tanto para outros mundos, mas para outros espaços e tempos que a narrativa de quadrinho nos permite sermos levados. Quer um quadrinho diferente? Leia A Entrevista. É ótimo.

[Valeria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I disegni sono spettacolari, tutto in bianco e nero, una maestria incredibile. La trama un po’ fumosa, penso che Fior dia il suo meglio (come trama) con situazioni più ordinarie, ad esempio mi è piaciuta tantissimo quella di Hypericon e 5000km al secondo. Qui, come in celestia, la trama è ambiziosa ma sviluppata poco. Ci sta, io lo leggo per godermi i disegni e le sensazioni poetiche che mi evoca (non sono amante di scifi)

[Zivile · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a graphic novel person but this book caught my idea because of visual effect of the cover. And it was a good guess: story is set in a near future, so there's an interesting line where that future seems walking on a utopian/dystopian edge. I liked the story, the moral of the story and the artistic style of the pictures.

[pierlapo quimby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Questo fumetto promette tanto ma non mantiene.
E ha quel retrogusto che sa un po' di fuffa, avete presente?

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very different kind of narrative from last year's 5,000 km per Second, but equally fascinating in an entirely different manner. Even down to its difference in art style.

[Mayara Lista · Rating 2 out of 5]

Desenhos bonitos e WTF!

[Marii · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graphic novel sci-fi ma che parla più dei rapporti che di un possibile futuro.

Italia del 2048, Udine, uno psicologo che rifiuta le comodità delle tecnologie finisce in un incidente d'auto a causa di una strana apparizione nel cielo notturno. Conosciamo dunque Raniero, probabilmente un uomo di mezz'età in crisi con sua moglie, nonostante la ami, e con i suoi amici, che godono di tutte le possibilità che la tecnologia può offrire senza le nuove idee dei giovani e di un nuovo culto che professa libero amore e rispetto per i luoghi.
Tutto ha una svolta con Dora, la protagonista del romanzo, che diviene paziente di Raniero proprio a causa della stessa visione che ha causato l'incidente di Raniero.

Non mi dilungo oltre sulla trama, ho apprezzato molto il filone e le pagine che mostrano le idee del nuovo movimento, facendo un interessante paragone con la situazione dei nostri giorni; dall'altra parte però, non posso non notare che la trama principale sia un'altra storia su una crisi di mezz'età di un uomo che ha una breve storia con una ragazza (che rientra perfettamente negli stilemi della manic pixie dream girl) poco più che adulta che magicamente abbandona qualunque sua idea per stare con ques'uomo.
Ho apprezzato molto anche la contrapposizione del rifiuto del nuovo in termini sociali, ma non tecnologici, che è un dualismo che mi ha sempre affascinato.

Graficamente Fior è eccezionale, un uso delle vignette magistrale (bellissime le pagine di sole vignette nere) e la resa grafica di alcuni elementi determinanti nella storia , ovvero gli "alieni".
Recupererò sicuramente le sue altre graphic novel.

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovely surprise. A kind of sociological story about the future, featuring possible UFOs, set in Italy, that doesn't give away what it doesn't have to. I thought from the cover it would be a realist story about a sad sack man having an affair. There is a slightly sad sack psychologist, and he does have an encounter with one of his patients after his wife leaves him, but it doesn't feel as sleazy as it sounds to read that sentence. Fior's people are sharply but softly drawn and move around with what my mind pictures as a light ballast, and the smudged-graphite/charcoal houses, fields and cities give the story a hushed sense of import or maybe it's the inevitablity of time, since they felt like timeless witnesses to the historical moments that were happening. It's not an action story or a thriller, but there are thrilling moments - between people, between a person and their thoughts, between the crowd and the world.

[Claudio · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I think about this book, the more I struggle with classifying it as a graphic novel. Not because there is a lack of narrative, or because some aspects of the story are underdeveloped (I read a few reviews complaining about this, and I’m halfway between perplexed and sincerely sorry for these people and their relationship with reading as an activity). The story is there; soft, quiet, but glimmering, from beginning to end (and yes, the end is somewhat unsatisfying but, you know, dear disappointed reader, a story is not there to please you and/or fulfil your expectations). The characters are there, with all their dimensions and their struggles. All of this is in plain sight, albeit not laid down explicitly with some lengthy prose.

The reason why I can’t really see The Interview as a graphic novel is that the experience of reading it, at least for me, was more similar to walking into an art gallery, staring at the paintings on the walls. And then, a moment later, realizing that those paintings were also telling a story. The landscapes, the faces, the movements, are all so vivid in their smudged-graphite strokes that I spent way more time on the strips without a dialogue than on anything else. Thinking about it, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the climax consists in several pages that are, literally, silent. Not even a single line, or spoken word.

To cut a long story short, here is what I think. I am not an expert on graphic novels but I can easily see that, in a good graphic novel, the art tends to be functional to the narrative. In other words, the art is exactly in the way the story needs it to be (and in no other way). My sheer impression is that The Interview turns this relationship upside down: the art is in the foreground, and the story is exactly what the art needs (and nothing else). It’s the story serving the art, not the other way round.

So, my two cents: do not approach The Interview as a graphic novel (or, even worse, as a sci-fi novel), but rather as a work of art. And only then notice how the story unfolds in between the strokes.

[mymt zaza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chaque page est magnifique, on se laisse porter par la lecture, les dialogues s'écoulent tranquillement. Le rythme est doux, les protagonistes réalistes, la façon de dessiner les corps est un mélange réaliste et fluide, j'aime beaucoup 👍



SPOILER

un gros reproche sur un événement que je juge abusif a la fin mais on le sentait venir à des km

[Madi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the art and story of this. It was hard to decipher just exactly what this book was about, but it also feels as if it was open for interpretation. Mid life crisis, distrust, aliens, lights, telepaths...

I feel like it had a little bit of something, but then I felt the story shift, and then it ended without really explaining -what- happened.

[Adam Osth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and haunting. Reads like a Murakami take on the film Arrival. The dialogue always manages to feel real and human despite the sometimes surreal events happening around the characters in the story.