Maurizio Nichetti
Volere Volare

Maurizio (Nichetti) is a timid and extremely clumsy sound effects artist and voice actor for cartoons, while his brother Patrizio (Roversi) is practical and outgoing, doubling as a voice actor for porn films amidst a bevy of semi-nude girls. The complicated Martina (Angela Finocchiaro) is a sui generis social worker who assists her peculiar and eccentric clients in rather bizarre practices (the term "mignotta" has nothing to do with it, it's hard to explain better), while her friend Loredana (Mariella Valentini) is a uninhibited flirt who doesn't spare her advice and life lessons. Sparks fly between Maurizio and Martina, the two set a date and begin to see each other, but the unexpected is just around the corner: he gradually starts to turn into a cartoon and, understandably embarrassed, starts standing her up. All the hassles of being a cartoon obviously come out in funny and absurd situations with a light and lively air.

Nichetti is an ironic author, never trivial and extremely underestimated. “Volere Volare” (1991) is an example of how he conceives cinema: his is a delicate comedy, avoiding mere foul language and vulgarity, romantic yes, but without overdoing it with saccharine and offering truly amusing moments. He is the perfect link between cartoon and reality, endowed with cartoonish or silent cinema mimicry, while Finocchiaro makes a paradoxical situation credible, enriching her character with absolutely ordinary and legitimate female neuroses and doubts that make Maurizio's metamorphosis appear almost "normal". Even the side characters are incredibly surreal and form an eccentric mosaic of a world that may seem normal only at first glance. The "strangeness", almost always lived as something to hide and experience secretly in private, is here shared and understood by others without moralism or hypocrisy.

“Volere Volare” is not a film that provokes thought on diversity, it rightly has no pretensions of commitment, it doesn't exactly make you roll with laughter, nor does it move you; it's a modern fairy tale that can be enjoyed peacefully, induces a relaxed smile, and makes you want to watch another Nichetti film, perhaps "Ladri di Saponette", which is even better.