massimobrambilla

Two fore-wording items, before my comments on the movie are in order: 1) I am a liberal, left-wing, politically involved citizen, or better, what in Berlusconi's wonderland was actively defined as a "dangerous communist", a term used for everyone more progressive than Maggie Thatcher and less anti-communist than Augusto Pinochet ; also I loved Moretti's production since "Io" "sono" "un" "autarchico" and do believe that his SacherFilm is one of the few pillars sustaining high-quality cinema in Italy. 2) When this movie appeared, close to the election period, it raised a hot argument among the opponents for its alleged political content. Pointless. Oh, but we Italians cannot live without good, pointless polemics, or a juicy scandal, or some gruesome crime, possibly involving a minor and weeping relatives thereof. Here I think we're talking about a movie -like- raising hell on science research vs. animal rights because the main characters have a cute Guinea pig pet... This said, the documental and fictional content on Mr.Berlusconi is correctly defined by Moretti'character (he plays himself) in the movie as something that no one in Italy who wanted to know, does not know. Anyone who is motivated enough to read one in the plethora of books on the history and deeds of our Man of Destiny knows that even darker, more upsetting and obnoxious relations/facts sparsely punctuate his ascension to the financial and political scene; anyone who is otherwise oriented to believe his journalists and TVs will find in this movie the standard attack to the can-do, self-made, "defensor" "fidei" which can be dismissed with the usual reference to orchestrated, iconoclastic, communist hatred. I must say that the "J'accuse" against Berlusconi and the ethical degeneration of our poor Country is weak and "deja vu". From the man who managed, in just two lines, to represent the ineptitude of a political class and the discouragement of a generation ("D'Alema, dì qualcosa di sinistra... D'Alema, dì qualcosa....". Sorry, this can be understood just by Italians, I am afraid it'd take half a page to explain it to someone who didn't have the mishap to live in Italy in the 90s) I was expecting much much more... The movie is the story of a declining producer whose last chance to avoid existential and professional bankruptcy comes as the script of a movie on the Premier. Then there comes the well-known plot-over-plot concerning the making of the movie. There are a few hints on the scare that the proposal of this movie scatters on the characters coming in touch with it, but not half as effective as what "Viva Zapatero!" was able to do. The story of the producer is alas the standard "Nuovo Cinema Italiano" cliché: the marriage and existential crisis, the worries for the children, the problems on the job, the irruption of a fresh, lively, challenging feminine character (with the pale touch of lesbianism, here)... nothing that could not be found in "La "finestra di "fronte" or "Ricordati di me" or "Cuore" "sacro" (see my comments on those). Luckily we are spared the relations with the parents... Sorry Nanni, you have been dealing with much higher profiles on some of these items in "La stanza del" "figlio" and other former movies... Some of the developments are "phoned" (italian term for dead giveaway) such as the betrayal of the main actor (Placido) or the wink to the unending closeness among Orlando and Buy in the final scenes. I could not believe this from Moretti... The final scene is didascalic and ineffectively exaggerated, seems that the audience at the premiere was upset by it, but its content is not that devastating... a reference to true facts - e.g. the covered masonic "Loggia P2" to which our former premier was affiliated n.1816- would have been IMHO more to the point. I read on the TV teletext that a selectionner for the Cannes Festival stated that this movie overthrows "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Moore and will be a rage in Cannes... now, GIMME A BREAK... easy now, madam... On exiting the cinema, both sad and depressed, my companion overheard a housewife (sorry for the politically incorrect reference) asking her pal "Hey, was this movie against the Left or against the Right ?".

Now, this movie is not going to mark the history of dark comedy cinema, but believe me it's waaay better than a whole lot of stuff that has been strewn around by USA, French and Italian makers lately. The pacing is fast, well kept though with a few ludicrously foreseeable passages; the cast is really good in painting the characters, almost all of them well performed and denoted, in landscaping the interpersonal relations and the working environment, in adding the zest of surreality which makes the good of the movie but -at the same time- avoiding the downfall into clownesque. Indeed, there is a clear directorial decision to remove this movie from the "credibility" section, to the surreal/grand-guignol/grotesque side, but the operation is successful, if you do not mind...and if you know where the "FerPecto" inversion comes from, then you'll enjoy it. The very end is indeed below the expectations that the plot built, but you won't guess it in advance.