Silvio (y los otros)

Greetings again from the darkness. Silvio Berlusconi is a former Prime Minister of Italy, having served four times. He is also a billionaire businessman who has been deeply involved with Italian politics for more than 20 years. Berlusconi is in his 70's and has been convicted of tax fraud, accused of conflicts of interest, and is well known for his brash and charismatic personality, as well as his scandalous personal lifestyle and numerous controversies. None of that is required information prior to watching the movie since it's described as a "fictional" account, but it does help to have a basic understanding of the man.

It should be noted that the film was originally released as Part 1 and Part 2. The international version I watched has been edited to 151 minutes, almost one hour shorter than the two parts combined. It begins by following Sergio Morra, a charming hustler and schemer played by Riccardo Scamarcio (JOHN WICK 2). Along with his wife Tamara (Euridice Axen), he runs a prostitution and escort ring of beautiful young ladies ... each willing to show and do whatever is necessary to obtain money, drugs, and a career or rich husband. It becomes apparent that Sergio really wants a chance to meet with "him", Silvio Berlusconi, in hopes of some type of business partnership. Sergio's meeting with Silvio's lead mistress Kira (Kasia Smutniak) cracks the door that he so wishes to enter.

Sergio throws a party at Villa Morena, the home next to Silvio's sprawling Sardinia country estate. Decadence and wild activities abound, as does dancing by the swimming pool to the thumping Italian techno music. There seem to be no rules, or even etiquette, at the party where nudity, drugs and booze are commonplace. The party gets Silvio's attention and he agrees to meet with Sergio. It's at this point where the film shifts to its second narrative. No longer focused on Sergio, the story becomes all Silvio.

Toni Servillo delivers a tour de force as Silvio Berlusconi. Sure, he is masked in make-up to capture the look of someone trying hard to look younger than they are - but that's exactly what Silvio did (and does). Mr. Servillo manages to become the larger-than-life figure that commands attention in every crowd and every room. Elena Sofia Ricci plays Veronica Lario, Silvio's wife. We witness their crumbling marriage and the unhappiness she has each day. Silvio's process with everyone, including his wife, is to shift into smooth political salesman mode. In fact, one of the greatest scenes of all movies this year has Silvio re-capturing his early days as a real estate salesman as he pushes a non-existent apartment on a lonely housewife. The scene features fascinating acting, writing and filmmaking in one fell swoop.

Director Paolo Sorrentino is best known for his Foreign Language Oscar for the fantastic THE GREAT BEAUTY (2013). This film is more extreme and harsh than that one was, and Sorrentino co-wrote this script with Umberto Contarello. Frequent collaborator Luca Bigazzi delivers terrific cinematography. At times the film looks like one lavish fashion shoot. The score and music come from Lele Marchitelli and play a crucial role throughout. Italy is presented here as having declined into a state of hedonism with mass debauchery. It's uncomfortable watching women stoop to these levels in hopes of being recognized and rewarded with some type of affirmation - either a better career, more wealth, or whatever their dreams might be. A powerful man is there to take advantage of such insecurities. The film touches on Silvio's political power and the aftermath of the L'Aquila earthquake. Much of the film focuses on the overall amorality of those involved, and though the actions of these folks might go against our own standards, we will admit that filmmaker Sorrentino has a knack for making something so vulgar still look darn good on screen.

Tony Servillo is outstanding in every film, but especially those by Sorrentino. In IL Divo he played Italian PM Andreotti as a hunched, Machiavellian vampire scuttling in the shadows. In Loro he plays Berlusconi as a shallow and brash, but tragic, aging lothario. Sorrentino's films and TV shows (The Great Beauty, The Young Pope, The New Pope etc ) are so rich, so complex and beautiful that they all need to be seen at least twice. They really grow in you with repeated viewing And all have absolutely cracking soundtracks. Sorrentino is Italy's greatest living director and unlike so many great directors he will take on politics in all its filthy reality

I have no clue what I just watched - which is pretty typical of a Sorrentino movie for me - but it certainly kept me captivated till the end.

This international cut of Paolo Sorrentino's sumptuous-looking biopic of Italian media tycoon-turned-former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (1936-) runs 145 minutes, collated and edited from LORO I and II which were subsequently released in Italy and in toto clock in at 204 minutes, nearly one-hour length of footage is truncated (may it all be bikini-clad, pneumatic girls roistering in abandonment), so for cinematic purist, please refrain from this version.

Otherwise, let's dive into this sybaritic adventure which kick-starts with a wacky caveat: a kawaii lamb plumb drops dead seconds after it stumbles into the cavernous living room of Berlusconi's summer residence in Sardinia, the message seems clear - Agnus Dei aka. innocence cannot survive in that toxic environs.

It takes a good 40 minutes before Mr. Berlusconi's first official appearance, during which, Sergio Morra (Scamarcio), who runs an escort business in Taranto with his partner Tamara (Axen), aims to branch out by getting the former PM's attention - who is scheming to win the upcoming 2008 election - through the brokering of Kira (Smutniak), Silvio's current mistress, among others. Sergio arranges a rip-roaring party mainly consisted of barely-clad nubile girls, in a rented villa right in front of Berlusconi's. Will he rise to the bait? There is no question about that.

First time Mr. Berlusconi (Servillo) entering the scene, he is dressed like an Arabian woman, veiled and everything, holding a posy and trying to delight his estranged wife Veronica Lario (Ricci), but her dismissal hits like an icy knife, "Don't be a clown, Silvio." an inner voice exclaims. Indeed, Sorrentino's tack is to peel off this plutocrat's layered guises to reveal what he is made of, a salesman and a clown, two bullet points are shored up by a nocturnal cold call to prove he still gets his pitchman mojo and the irreparable dissolution of his 20-year-old marriage with Veronica, who despises him for his incapacity in statecraft and unrestrained debauchery. And there is more spiteful sideswipe, what is at the rainbow's end for an elderly man who literally has everything in his life? His long lost youth, of course, Sorrentino's senescent barbs levering at a septuagenarian through the mouth of a 20-year-old nubile girl Stella (Pagani), whom Silvio intends to bed in the course of another lavish quarry-hunting party organized by Sergio, is piercingly cruel, and even afterwards, he dredges up the spat and tries to erase its verity by a wisecrack, but a passing thought is: if Stella's grandfather indeed shares the same denture cleaner as his, she might not need to be at that pathetic party in the first place.

Contrasting the unconscionable razzle-dazzle (which Sorrentino has honed to the hilt with a dash of absurdity and saturated bling-bling pizzazz) with a muted emptiness - which seeps in in the wake of the calamitous 2009 L'Aquila earthquake occurring after Berlusconi's re-election, the way Sorrentino linking these two events together deviously implies that the calamity could be the Almighty's irate answer towards his ascendency, LORO (means "them" in English) finally junks it materialistic ballast/frippery as well as the subplot of Sergio's grasping pursuance, in lieu, Berlusconi's self-reflexion tangentially alludes to an inconvenient truth: a leader's characteristics reflect those of the multitude who chooses him, and now, they want Jesus back.

Toni Servillo is, to be expected, superbly eloquent and all-around (also playing Ennio Doris, a billionaire businessman and one of Berlusconi's closest associates) in embodying a well-known real-life character whose tics and elocution the mass (Italian audience in particular) is very au fait with, subtly buries his diligent imitation under a self-parodying conviviality (top-notch make-up achievement too), shouldn't one be alert if his Berlusconi comes off as rather sympathetic? Among a vast supporting characters, Scamarcio and Smutniak both turn heads, but it is Elena Sofia Ricci who plays off Servillo's motor-mouthed accusation and interrogation with a calm but smoldering despair that preciously retains her vestigial dignity.

LORO is largely what one can expect from Sorrentino's sardonic disposition and ostentatious modus operandi, even if your mileage may vary towards his controversial subject, at the very least, we must hand it to Sorrentino for laying an undue outpouring of his outrageous brainwaves with an enormous trowel.

No point in reiterating the praise already heaped on yet another brilliant Sorrentino entertainment except to emphasize what a mind-blowing tour de force Toni Servillo gives. He deserves an Oscar for Best Leading Actor (which he won't get). I'm saddened by the way reviewers have ignored the performances of the sheep. Silence of the Lambs, I guess. (I couldn't resist...sorry)