Carlo Verdone
Al lupo al lupo

Strike while the iron is hot: after the success of my review of "Compagni di Scuola," and remaining very intrigued by many of your praises about "Al lupo al lupo," I attempt a doubleheader. This is a strange film by Carlo Verdone, intimate and improvised. The script was created between other projects and everything was set up to be released for the holiday season. No harm done, as time is not necessarily synonymous with quality, and in the early nineties the director was still in creative turmoil. The result is a film that surprisingly improves with every viewing, a family journey, three siblings reunited in search of their missing father in a private Tuscan odyssey, an opportunity to clash and perhaps find each other again.

Verdone might have been inspired by "Io e mia sorella," but once again decided to set up an amalgam of fiction and autobiographical hints (in real life he really has a musician brother and a sister, along with a very strong relationship with his father), mixing the inevitable commercial needs with an intimate and contemplative vein, perhaps the most intense ever seen in his filmography. The result is bizarre, askew in execution, with a practically non-existent plot but with a unique ability of the director to shift attention elsewhere: character analysis, interactions, the usual existential melancholy, and relieving and always amusing vignette sketches, even if a little less than usual.

Verdone plays Gregorio, a prankster DJ and failed musician (by his admission, because not very talented), Sergio Rubini is Vanni, a phenomenal pianist with a closed and austere character, while the beautiful Francesca Neri is the sister Lidia, mysterious and seductive. They all find themselves searching for their self-satisfied, poet and somewhat misanthropic father, who has retreated who knows where (in reality, we find out he's in his own home) in a journey that involves their different homes and stops in Siena and its surroundings. More than anything, it’s an opportunity to find each other and make some assessments, not an absolute novelty in Verdone's cinema. So we move from childhood memories to somewhat melancholic moments recalling that unique period of life, which in Verdone's lexicon is always behind us, onanistic gags, sexual revelations (but can we trust manipulative Livia's words?) in scenes that are always a comfort zone for Carlo, especially when he pushes the accelerator on Romanesco can always get a laugh. Then come the harsh confrontations that spare no one: Gregorio is jealous of the "classic, divine" talent of Vanni in his perfect execution of Satie, while Vanni envies the promiscuity of the parties organized by "Doctor Music" Gregorio, even having a sexual encounter arranged with a go-go dancer, but deep down he also envies Gregorio in his lightness in singing "Toccami" or "Chiudete il Buco" (referring to the ozone layer!), a lightness he will never have in his austere perfection. Livia, for her part, reflects the fully liberated new Verdonian woman, emancipated, manipulative, seductive and elusive, somewhat an unfaithful woman with remorse (?). Neri is of destabilizing beauty, perhaps in this film at her absolute peak, and she manages with her gaze to imprint a subtle vein of sadness to the character.

Rewatching the film, what struck me the most, besides the delicate expression of family "decay" with which many can identify, are Verdonian intuitions, such as the confrontation between divine and immortal academic notions (classical music) opposed to a new chaos (house music, vulgarity, improvisation), which also helps to identify humanity's artistic expression. Also very beautiful is the vision of man who crystallizes memories (the portrait executed by the father in the last scene) as an existential baggage.

"Al lupo al lupo" remains one of Verdone's most personal films, a work that gains new strength with every viewing, improving over the years like a fine wine. Perhaps not the absolute best (for me it ranks in his top 5), but a film where the viewer can relate and sympathize with its most intimate aspect.