Antonello Grimaldi
Caos Calmo

The mice had no grandchildren.

There are reversible things and others that are irreversible. Parts of our life that we are able to change and others, as we know, that we must accept as they happened. Crucial events that create disorder, to which we often react in the wrong, unconscious, selfish way.

Pietro Paladini saved a life, but shortly after he lost another. Lara left her husband and daughter Claudia. In the span of five minutes, starting from the opening credits. It's a difficult moment for the protagonists and for the viewer as well, who finds themselves holding back tears as soon as they're seated in the chair. Containing oneself is not difficult, but the breath goes away just the same. Pietro's paternal instinct leads him to remain outside his daughter's school all day: abandoning his workplace, colleagues come looking for him, and in the meantime, he makes new acquaintances. People with whom he never speaks, but with whom he exchanges gestures and brief glances, which have an essential value in their small way. During recess, Claudia peers out the window and waves at her father, who smiles at her.

Days pass, between a sandwich at the bar and a business meeting. From that bench, Pietro sees the world with calm, orders his mind, creates lists of words, of lived experiences, striving to soothe that terrible chaos within himself. It's the only way he can react to a tragedy. Consequently, the daughter also proves to be very introverted, behaving all too normally. In the midst of this delicate situation, Pietro meets the woman he saved that day, amid the killer waves. An encounter destined to repeat, in a scene of immense drama, suspended between dream and reality, in front of which one can only remain silent, eyes wide open, making no comment at all. The apparent return to normality will mark the end, where what had seemed irreversible, manages to find a balance again, albeit very unstable; a momentary peace, where no words are needed to understand each other. Pure magic.

The director is not Nanni Moretti, and it shows, but his fundamental presence in writing the screenplay is clear. It is, moreover, impossible not to draw a comparison with "The Son's Room," as "Quiet Chaos" is a possible parallel to it: two tales repeated differently, the death of the son, then of the wife; two ways of reacting rather similar, with rare outbursts of despair, in fact, in one single instance; a single protagonist, him, the only one who could render the subject perfectly. Those who do not appreciate his performances not only fail to understand how cinema should be made today, but do not even have the heart to grasp the passion with which Pietro Paladini is brought to life in flesh and blood.

Certainly, there are no shortages of some typically "Morettian" moments of hilarity, which joyfully season this fundamentally dramatic film; they are those strange laughs, which 30 years ago already he could bestow upon those who could grasp them.

I would have had, believe me, many more things to say about this film, reflections that were born right during the viewing: but I realized that the glances, the tiny gestures performed by the characters cannot be conveyed either in writing or by voice. This film must be seen, because no description will be truly accurate in representing that sort of poetry, lasting a couple of hours, that leaves one spellbound, at the mercy of pure cinematic feeling.

Leaving the theater, besides feeling like rarely in my existence, I didn't know what to say. I had a slight stomach ache, and I realized that it was not an easy film, regarding the themes, but that I absolutely had to see, and indeed should have seen much earlier. Once home, calm, sitting on my bed, I realized that deep in my mind, in the most remote corner, I had recognized myself in Pietro without noticing. I relived the last few months of my life and imagined myself on that bench in front of the Ugo Foscolo school, watching a Down syndrome boy pass by with his mother, a girl walking her dog, and a little girl waving to me from a window. And I cried.