Marcello Ciorciolini
Settefolli

The year was 1982, when State television could still be watched, despite the early signs of the bad seed that would corrupt almost the entire television system and beyond, today. The good Marcello Ciorciolini, a craftsman screenwriter and conventional director, crafted, for the humorous column of the Third Channel "Che fai, ridi?" a daring medium-length film, which, with the help of the relentless "panta rei", has become a cult of our native nonsensical comedy.

Shot with very few means, ten thousand lire of production, and basic technique, it features as the protagonist a highly charged and ever so brilliantly mad, Giorgio Bracardi, a colorful creator of absolutely nonsensical characters, coined starting from the historic, granite radio program "Alto gradimento".

The title comes from the name of a laughing "ha ha" village in the Tuscan-Marchese Apennines, where the film is set. The curtain opens with a view of the pleasant village, indicated on the horizon by a wooden sign. The houses are gently embraced by the slight muffled haze that precedes the sunrise. With a little attention, one can distinguish some trilling sung by cicadas still active and a faint whisper of wind. The streets are obviously deserted, and everything seems quiet until a hopping figure wrapped in a white nightgown materializes. On her head is a cap like Dante Alighieri's. Some whispers, fingers that seem to want to type an imaginary keyboard only to join cone-like at the sides of the mouth. A cruel thunder splits the night: " PAAAAAAATROOOOCLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ‘a Patroclo, ti faccio vedere io! Gliagliaglia!". And disappears. Brilliant.

It is necessary to list and remember the whirlwind of characters that appear in this lively film, all played by the protagonist. There's Ermanno Catenacci, a fascist, former squadrist, an irreducible nostalgic of the twenty-year period with castor oil and truncheon blows, and current owner of a butcher shop that grinds offal with a chisel. His days pass between the memories of "those years" and historical-cultural clashes with Professor Marcellini. The latter, a staunch supporter of the Risorgimento and its pillars, tries to teach highly improbable students the epic deeds of Cavour, Mazzini, Verdi from behind bottleneck glasses and razzing a telephone inexplicably on the desk. In this case, it is suitable to highlight a subtle but burning and terribly prophetic satire, on customs and the political situation. In the middle of a disquisition, in a tenor-like scream, he compares the way today's politicians "eat" with exaggerated gnamme-gnamme with the measured and almost imperceptible cip-cip, cip-cip of the Great Politicians of the past. How can we forget the annoyed: "Chettefrega, chettefreeega! Disgrazziato!", addressed to the students in front of an obviously unanswered question.

And Onorato Spadone? The village pharmacist not at all opposed to laxative purges, prescribed as a panacea for every ailment, ending with the award-winning axiom: "Man is a ‘bbestia! And woman is twice the ‘bbestia!". We come across the whimsical incursions of a deejay with a Ringo Starr-style bob, the agitated shepherd in constant search of "Li pecuri!" the old Settefollino, an exceptional dispenser of wisdom for the sole desperate forced to listen to him. Madnesses like: "...the sheep makes the wool, the ox does not...". And the one listening with a sighed "...eeeh yes!", grapples with the "Financial Times", not "il Resto del Burino".

It closes with the terrible Maestro Biscroma, a pianist, who invites the same improbable audience to his compositions. He, in tails, disheveled hair, pants held up by a rope, and sneakers, between a flurry of keys and a few spirited screams, demands the convinced applause of those present after repeatedly spitting at them. To remember, among the featured actors, Mauro Vestri, better known as Guidobaldo Maria Riccardelli.

A gem of television from nearly thirty years ago, something circulates online in poor condition. Not that someone would decide to convert it to digital, eh? No, no, no. In compensation, they republish in elegant platinum-like amaray box sets silly stuff like the Cesaroni or other garbage branded Merdaset and not only.

How beautiful Italian television is.