Palombella rossa

As cinema "Palombella rossa" is quite bad, probably Nanni Moretti's worst film, and curiously made after "La messa è finita", in which faith was put to test. In "Palombella..." it was the turn to reflect on one sector of the tense fabric of Italian politics of late 20th century: the Italian Communist Party. Maybe today it results interesting from a historical perspective, as it probably was in 1989 from an ideological point of view to both Italian Communists and those who cared about their predicaments after the Berlin Wall fell. Unfortunately, endlessly enunciated ideas do not make an attractive audiovisual experience, even if the plot device of resorting to the loss of memory is a fine and clever excuse to trigger personal evaluation. Moretti relies more on words than on moving images and sounds, and in the end his film becomes very tedious. You may enjoy it if you love to hear him shouting for 89 minutes, and if you share his ideology (whatever it is): this reminds me of a few of my theater friends who enjoy some tiresome, stage-bound motion pictures that are loaded with dialogues and heavy theatricality. But the average spectator, even the one who loves "films of / with ideas", will probably look in another direction after 20 minutes.

1989: Berlin wall is down. communist dictators in the past. for all the people that lived this age a new freedom, but for those who were in the west, it's the falling of hope. unless everybody knew that real socialism was a bad solution, it represented the chance to create, or just imagine, something different from capitalism. now the wall is down, what does it mean to be left-wing? if you've been a communist all of your life, what's your new position in society. Moretti here represents perfectly this situation: Italian communist party, is almost lost, a great discussion inside: what are we doing, where do we come from, and (most important) where do we go now? are we different, are we the same of the rest? can we find back the will to fight?

an exceedingly eccentric film, with a devil-may-care approach that succeeds - and only just, at that - to the extent that one is charmed by wild improvisation. this is my style, so what, says the director, and shall we next try this?

Political analysis is quite beside the point, which is indeed the point, if any, of the film. The absurdity of grasping at political meaning (or rather, replacing it with expression) is wonderfully captured in amnesia (and the entire success of the film, by the way, depends on a brilliantly sustained performance in this role).

babble; terrific fun.

Michele is the leader of the Italian communist party and a professional water polo player. On this day he has just lost his memory following a (very stupid) car accident. So he has to discover the intricacies of his life again, and he does so through the naive eyes of the anxious child he used to be - through an improvised psychoanalytic trip symbolized by the friendships and adversities of a water polo game.

While she may not be the star, I appreciate that Asia Argento had a part here. I always felt like she was not really in much beyond her father's films or the films of her father's friends, at least at first. But this is a clear exception, because there is nothing about this movie that says Dario Argento was involved.

I consider Red Lob one of the best Italian movies of all times. It's surreal, moving, thought-provoking and incredibly funny. I wonder what a non-Italian audience may make of it, since it's steeped in references of the Italian political environment of the 70s/80s but I hope such audience can enjoy in the same way, I, for example, can love an Aki Kaurismaki movie despite it coming from a culture whose finer points I ignore.

It's a film of my adolescence and nowadays it looks, feels and sounds quaint and almost naive -- but also courageous. Which Italian director would risk today to make a two-hours dream-like, heavily metaphorical political movie? And whose director would manage to make something so hilarious out of it?

I wish I could share at length how much Red Lob influenced me and my whole generation. Some scenes, like the one where Michele slaps the journalist in the face because she is using clichéd expressions, or the one where he tries to explain to a Catholic politician why they are different, are still quoted today and are part of our cultural baggage.

If you've never seen a Moretti movie, maybe start by something more conventional like The Mass is Ended but please don't pass by Red Lob, because it's a real treat.