Francesco Maselli
Gli indifferenti

Francesco Maselli, a communist and anti-fascist, had everyone's eyes on him, being the namesake of an internationally renowned book. Nonetheless, he decided to defy expectations by making a film with a deeply existential character, free from superstructures alluding to the historical period ('29-30), which was at the height of fascism with the bourgeoisie in triumph; and concentrating the timeframe of the work to two days (and two nights) in the tòpos of the family Villa, with few exteriors of a rainy Rome with withered leaves.

Leo Merumeci (Rod Steiger) is a wealthy associate of the Ardengo family, composed of siblings Michele (Thomas Milian) and Carla (Claudia Cardinali) and their mother Mariagrazia, his lover; a strategist in search of social affirmation as well as the satisfaction of his sexual instincts, which soon shift towards Carla, despite losing the vestige of a fascist hierarch. It will be him who comes to the aid of the no longer affluent bourgeois family when bailiffs knock on their door to catalog the assets therein in anticipation of repossession. And it will be him, subsequently, to pester the young woman, in line with his mantra: that the world is terribly boring and that sometimes one must have the courage to overturn it... in that case dragging her into a dilapidated shelter among the trees in the garden, attempting to abuse her, in an almost carnal assault scene that at the time caused a scandal in the press.
To be honest, though, one cannot help but feel that the film is somehow boring, with some lines that today sound ironically out of place, including the fixed gaze of the mother Mariagrazia, followed by hysterical crying towards Leo, despite not being yet aware of his lusts toward her daughter, which in the film's finale turns more into an expression steeped in senile madness rather than anything else...

The situation slightly livens up with the "spectral" sequence, due to the fiery lighting, of the social evening at the Ritz, in stark contrast to all the previous frames photographed with the least possible light, giving an almost funereal atmosphere.
Leo is still portrayed as a man who always gets whatever he wants, in this case, Carla, who will yield to him, not out of opaque passivity as in the novel, but rather in a sort of angry reactivity... yet he will find himself confronting the brother, informed of the situation by the family friend Lisa, who will urge him to awaken his hitherto dormant critical conscience; but probably without any success, leaving loveless eroticism as the only disconsolate escape for the two siblings.

Even though the film belongs to the genre of works about incommunicability, I personally appreciated the very strong character developments of all the characters involved, even if, despite Moravia himself, with more than 15 films adapted from his novels, stating in relation to the film that the director must necessarily be unfaithful because this is where his originality is recognized, places Maselli's film, along with "La Ciociara", "Il disprezzo", and "Il conformista" among his favorites, I still far prefer the book.