Luigi Zampa
Anni difficili

The alpha and the Omega of an ignominious invention that occurred in an even worse country, only to end with a destiny of equal manufacture. In 1948, the very talented Luigi Zampa, assisted bravely by an entrepreneur passionate about mobile celluloid, directed this work when the clown's corpse ideologically still had its ankles wrapped in chains.

The Sicilian industrialist Ferdinando Briguglio, with a paternal eye on the shiny peel of citrus fruits awaiting export, founded a film production company that managed to lay the foundations for only two films: this and the negligible "Quel fantasma di mio marito" starring a very young and poorly dubbed Walter Chiari.

"Anni difficili" is a satire where the bitter prevails over the sweet, focused on fascism, intelligent and painful for the survivors but with a promising hemlock flavor for the ignoble nostalgic fascists. The “ventennio” is described in all its hypocrisy, its false facade of cardboard and papier-mâché medals, the boastful emphasis of balcony propaganda, and the depressing ignorance of the marshall tulips clad in black shirts. And it can't be otherwise if Vincenzo Bellini will find himself spinning in his grave for the sole fault of having written a hundred years earlier that Rome is shit in the libretto of "La Norma." With foresight from before. The even more intelligent satire of the period, directed by the same Zampa, will see the light with due caution, a handful of decades later in "Anni ruggenti."

Aldo Piscitello is a humble municipal employee who tends, for the sake of peace, to look askance at the current political situation. Somehow, he finds himself entangled in the dazzled webs of family women who tend to praise the divine-chinned as an oracle without blemish.

Around the venal puppet with fez and zouave, a poisonous vortex will suck in the choices (imposed), the loves (constructed), decisions (guided), and destinies (infamous) of every member of the family. Soon, to avoid arbitrary sips of castor oil or, worse, being fired from his job, dear Piscitello will have to conform to the call of the fake sirens, having to reach hierarchical heights that are not insignificant. Departures on poorly camouflaged fronts from the oranges and grotesque, paroxysmal comparisons with those who have fared the world on horseback equipped with a sword, will contribute to producing the rest. Unfortunately, with the same temporal speed, what was a peak will flop to the base, where the fragile foundations of a rotten system will push the poor employee to an utterly dishonorable price, to grope laboriously in a dark and very painful gut.

As they would say in my neck of the woods: "'O cane mozzeca semp 'o stracciat'!" (that is The dog always tends to bite the ragged one). I offer you the free interpretation of the vernacular phrase.

Necessary applause must be paid to the very talented Umberto Spadaro, a versatile actor always in a hard-fought battle with oblivion. To be clear, he is the same one who, between a hand-dispatched sneeze and an ear twisting, will play the oily defense attorney in "Sedotta e abbandonata."

Massimo Girotti had already been tested by directors who would soon turn into chrys-elephantine monuments. Not to mention Ave Ninchi, already a guarantee of excellence at the time. If only there were actresses today as fiery and spontaneous as her...

In the domestic and hypocritical tally of the obvious, the film will be flogged by critics and snubbed by the public, factors that will force the good Briguglio to abandon the passion of reinforcement. Even with his armor dented by polystyrene judges, the fearless Zampa will manage to walk the red carpet in Venice with an award, albeit technical, to reflect the sun's rays.

Time has passed, but someone saw fit to fish it out, restore it, and give it the proper depth and/or splendor. A work which, with a pinch of novel, does not detract from the documentaries generated by re-discovering the most hidden archives. And if everything was already known then, imagine now...