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Between 1997 and 1998, bridging "Amore Tossico" and "Non essere cattivo" Claudio Caligari, signs his second film, the little-known "The Scent of the Night", loosely inspired by the novel "Le notti dell’arancia meccanica" by Dido Sacchettoni.
Set in Rome between 1979 and 1984, "The Scent of the Night" centers on Remo Guerra (Valerio Mastandrea).
Remo Guerra is a policeman by day, robber by night.
In his rather violent nightly raids, he is aided by Maurizio (Marco Giallini) and Roberto (Giorgio Tirabassi).
Maurizio is a playboy interested only in money and beautiful women, comes and goes, and he can't be relied upon too much.
Roberto is more dependable but soon, despite having a family and a real need for money, he will leave the gang, unable to bear the pressure of so much violence without confronting his own conscience.
Guerra will then resort to the Rough (Emanuel Bevilacqua), a ruthless thug without any scruples. The escalation of violence will be impressive.
Caligari's cinema is not easy to decipher, partly because he made only three feature films in 30 years of career and also because it resembles practically nothing but itself. This is a sincere merit that I feel I must attribute to him. Caligari is not derivative, does not resort to particular clichés or stereotypes, does not deliver moral lessons or gratuitous morals but exposes the facts with raw realism, bitter irony, with a particular grotesque streak. Another common element of certain genre cinema, typically Italian, is a massive presence of sentiments, understood as feelings of goodness, heart-rending, de còre grosso, to say it in Roman dialect, I think for example of the neorealism films of De Sica and Pasolini "Ladri di biciclette", "Mamma Roma", and so on. Elements always dispensed in massive doses in certain social contexts, stated as mitigating factors, i.e., almost acts to justify certain behaviors that lead to the path of crime, for example.
Well in "The Scent of the Night" there is none of that.
The film opens immediately with the sequence of a night robbery. We said we are at the end of the '70s. It is the era of fur-clad women and men with Rolexes returning home late at night after a theater, a restaurant. Guerra chooses his victims well and strikes at the right moment. Something for me! he demands of the unfortunate, gun in hand and within seconds a beating. Punches in the face, even to women, headbutts on the car hood always under the constant threat of a loaded gun barrel.
The victims are mostly helpless, almost absent, more than robberies they seem like expropriations. Even the violence with which the robbers strip passers-by of their possessions almost seems to suggest to us that they are owed it, because the rich have too much and we have nothing "something for me".
The film is very interesting and visually very enjoyable especially due to a varied and exquisite directing technique. It ranges from split-screen to freeze frames, from long takes to shots from above or below. We then have several memorable scenes, above all the robbery in the house of Little Tony's lover, or Remo who, gun in hand, alone at home watches TV, there’s Heather Parisi singing "Cicale" and he points the gun at her (the screen obviously). It is undoubtedly a dense film, rich in details, the typical film to watch multiple times to grasp it in its fullness.
A few curiosities. Caligari did not choose stunt-men but extras. However, he demanded realism so during the robberies and beatings occasionally someone would get hurt. During coffee breaks, the likes of Mastandrea, Tirabassi, etc. would apologize to the extras. Aho sorry for before eh? Did I hurt you? Even Mastandrea in the first take (a violent action scene) fell to the ground and dislocated his shoulder, which was put back in place by a crew worker. The lead was supposed to be Giallini but Caligari at the last moment changed his mind and switched roles, even adding a third element, Tirabassi. 15 years later, in "Non essere cattivo" he will do the same thing, reversing the roles of Borghi and Marinelli.
It seems Caligari made only three films because up there, they wouldn't let him work. His scripts were systematically rejected because they were reportedly rather "uncomfortable", I don’t know the details, this is hearsay but it’s quite plausible (Valerio Mastandrea told me).
In any case, this movie ultimately tells us that the strongest always wins.
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