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Rating: It's rare for watching a film to leave you with a lump in your throat, or at least that's not usually the case for me. However, "Berlinguer, la grande ambizione" is a work that has the power to revive memories of a distant period in Italian and international history, to which I feel connected due to my age.
As suggested by the title, director Andrea Segre (with previous experience as a documentarian) emphasizes the five-year period from 1973 to 1978 during which the secretary of the then PCI, Enrico Berlinguer, led the said party in a unique historical context. After the fall of Chile's government under Allende by General Pinochet, he thought of formulating a proposal for a democratic transition to socialism in Italy, aiming for dialogue and alliance with all popular and anti-fascist forces, primarily the Catholic masses pertaining to the Christian Democracy. From that political hypothesis, known as the historic compromise, emerged a season rich with events that culminated in the kidnapping and killing of the Catholic politician Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1978. This coincided with the traumatic end of an ambitious political project proposed by Berlinguer and the PCI leadership.
Beyond all these historical facts, which Andrea Segre recalls with meticulous documentary clips, the film shows us a Berlinguer of intense humanity in his private sphere. We see him doing push-ups before sitting at his desk to start an intense workday, not without sipping a glass of fresh milk. Whenever time allows, he engages in conversations with his wife and children on various topics, not exclusively political. He even goes as far as to write a letter to his wife to apologize for not dedicating enough time to family affection, considering that political militancy also involves sacrifices.
And it is precisely this private sphere that makes him less formal compared to his official capacity as a political figure. Here, Elio Germano, who interprets him, fully manages to express Berlinguer's reserved and sober nature, a man of upright principles who does not hide his deep convictions in front of eminent foreign interlocutors from the communist parties of Eastern Europe (the conversation with the Bulgarian comrades appears as a perfect dialogue between the deaf). In short, he certainly did not lack a certain courage if he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Bulgaria in 1973 (trust those Russian comrades...). A small courageous man, whose physical frailty in the face of such political commitment is highlighted by Elio Germano's interpretation (although there is no need for the director to frame him speaking in public with the same Sardinian cadence as Berlinguer).
Despite these mimetic excesses (in the vein of the well-known Alighiero Noschese, an imitator from the times of black and white TV), Segre managed not only to recreate the odyssey of one of the last Italian politicians worthy of respect regardless of one's opinion but also to create an intense "amarcord" of an Italy distant in time. For someone like me who grew up during that period (from 1973 to 1978, I attended the Berchet classical high school in Milan), the memory of a widespread sense of attention and conviction regarding the fundamental and foundational character of political practice in everyone's life remains indelible. This takes into account the many negative aspects of political reality during those years (such as the strategy of tension, clashes between extremist factions, terrorism, etc.).
If I only think that today, for many, discussing politics is regarded with the same annoyance as talking about the pains caused by hemorrhoids, I realize how much time has passed since the era of Berlinguer and other contemporary politicians. Who today can boast an equal charisma? Who, like him, would work so diligently for the res publica by studying, reading, and writing intensively? Think of any current politician, and you'll have an unequivocal answer.
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