César debe morir

It's rather discardable. The directing brothers were frustrated as they tried to create something as interesting as Kaos, Fiorile or Luisa Sanfelice. If this is up to the Golden Berlinese Bear, it's a sign of how low the level of current productions is. This is meta-theatre, set in Rebibbia, a high-security prison in Rome. The performers are real life convicts. "Cesar must die addresses the links between drama and reality , but working with amateurs didn't help. The film may be useful as kinda sociological propaganda, but it never qualifies as 'Cinéma vérité,' the meta-style of fiction-documentation filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by the former theories about Kino-Pravda. I do call it a kind of Reality Show, though. Aren't Inmates Survivors & Big Brothers who are Keeping Up with the Roman Kardashians after all? ;-)

The concept is very original, giving criminal prisoners the opportunity to produce a Shakespearer play in prison, the plsy being "Julius Caesar", and each prisoner allowed to speak in his own dialect. The result is a very stylistic and primitive alternative Shakespeare, mainly shown by rehearsals, and especially Brutus makes a very good performance. The text is considerably mutilated, only the action scenes are mainly presented, and there is not one woman in the whole performance. Still, it's an interesting representation, like all the films of the brothers Taviani are, and the main credit is the original angle. Most of the film is in black and white, to which the colour sections present a great efficient contrast. The theatre performance turns into a tremendous success, in spite of some arguments among the prisoners.

Taviani Brothers'2012 Golden Berlin Bear winner, saw the screening in this year's KVIFF, an intensely conceptual piece which recounts a play of "Julius Caesar"done by all-male prisoners. Shot entirely in Black & White, the film generates a certain art form extremity of blurring the boundary between play and film, and takes advantages of the indoor settings (which almost encompasses the entire film except for a few shots), the final result is gratifyingly diverting, both the film and the play-in-the-film.

I have only watched one Taviani Brothers' film before, ALLONSANFAN (1974, a 5/10). So I need to do more homework to comment on their style or expound on their near 60 years long walk- of-life. Simply single out this film, its artistic frontier has transcended other peers and condensed into a puristic absorption on the material itself, namely, the characters of the play and the individual prisoners who take on the roles, and strikingly their distinctions and similarities are undone in a yet refrained way. There are affluent theatrical nuisances in the film, although it only runs a scant 76 minutes, the film successfully conveys its ethos and every second counts.

Salvatore Striano stars the leading role as Bruto, his rough-edged dedication is imperfect but authentic, other supporters, the stand-outs are Cosimo Rega's Cassio and Juan Dario Bonetti's Decio, but by and large the amateur antics are put into the right place, and the absorbing original score by Giuliano Taviani and Carmelo Travia also lifts the film into a great adaption from Shakespeare's cannon. It's a true blessing to justify the fact that directors could surpass themselves even at their octogenarian years.

After attending the premiere of "Cesare Deve Morire", I was not so sure about the movie. It was a good movie, but somehow essayist, rather loose, not catchy. The outstanding performance of Salvatore Striano (Brutus) was striking and rewarded by the audience. The beautiful composition of black and white pictures was of high aesthetic value. It is a very calm movie, the music is nearly minimalistic.

So how come it had a huge impact on me - later? In contrast to most other movies I had seen in Berlin, it was important. Other movies dealt with existentialistic, superficially more important topics than with some prisoners rehearsing a Shakespeare play. Yet "Cesare Deve Morire" had more to say and thus it deserved the Golden Bear. The questions it poses are the same ones as in the Shakespeare play in interrelation with the real destiny of the imprisoned play actors. Even though it is not a particularly spectacular movie, it has the tenor of what makes a strong movie: Importance. The filmmaking is of minor importance, the idea is in the foreground, which is the right decision. The play continues in our minds after the final curtain. Impressive.

Unable to snap up a ticket for this during Berlinale Film Festival (where it also won the grand prize), I've been itching to see Caesar Must Die (Cesare deve morire) for quite some time now. The latest from veteran Italian duo, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Padre Padrone, Kaos), it's a documentary-fiction hybrid observing the rehearsals and final performance of William Shakespeare's Roman masterpiece 'Julius Caesar'. What makes this movie noteworthy is it's idiosyncratic formalities: the play is being performed from Rome's high security Rebibbia Prison, and the players are it's incarcerated residents: an ensemble cast of murderers, drug dealers and thieves.

The brothers waste no time with needless exposition on the inmates' backstories or crimes. Instead, the pair focus, with brutal proximity, how these criminals connect with the words of "The Bard". Aside from the final, veracious performance, it's all shot in stylised black and white, as we see the production being set up, the rehearsals in the prison courtyard, and the delicate moments these wrongdoers spend behind cell bars. As is often the case with the Taviani's back-catalogue, there's moments filmed in tender close-ups; loading objects such as an empty chair or a wooden sword an implausible subtext.

That meta-narrative carries over to the inmates themselves, and ends up confusing us. Not only are they performers in the Shakespearean sense, it quickly becomes clear that they are being presented as poetical cyphers of their real life criminal selves. It's a shameful attempt at allegory – expressing how the elder words of Shakespeare relate to contemporary penal society, and in doing so removes any sense of empathy we would have otherwise had for the inmates.

Although the "play-within-a-film" gimmick is a good one, it's hardly original (Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York and Canadian filmmaker John Greyson's Lillies are both really worth a look). It's also not the best part of Caesar Must Die. With such astounding performances and beautiful adaptation of Shakespeare's words, one wishes that the Tatvianis abandoned the ostentatious stunts and luscious monochrome display, and instead focused plainly on documenting these ostracised people. An extraordinary, grotesque bunch, who find happiness, solidarity and hope in creative expression.

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