Michele Soavi
Arrivederci amore, ciao

Dorian Gray, having fallen in love with his own portrait and concerned about his face aging, wishes intensely for it to remain identical to what he saw on the canvas. To satisfy this desire, in some way, the painting ages and deteriorates due to Dorian's dissipation and despicable acts, while he commits all sorts of debauchery and depravity without his face being marred.

Similarly, the main characters of "Arrivederci amore, ciao" are genuine scoundrels, true traitors, major bastards who improve their social reputation while sinking into a sea of nefarious deeds.

It’s a film about appearance, a good film.

The life of the protagonist of this story, a leftist revolutionary and terrorist named Giorgio Pellegrini, changes the night of an attack when, while desperately trying to save a night watchman from the explosion that wasn’t aimed at him, he first gets injured himself and then, as a consequence, is arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In this event, he loses his freedom but, more importantly, his soul. Having fled Italy and taken refuge among Central American revolutionaries, he coldly kills his best friend to get a chance to return to Europe.

Here, after threatening, or rather, thanks to threats against an old fugitive comrade in Paris, he obtains a lawyer and a scapegoat to take on his crime, allowing him to face a trial that frees him from the life sentence.

However, back in Italy, he is summoned by the head of DIGOS, Lieutenant Anedda (played by a good Michele Placido who, however, occasionally forgets the Sardinian accent of the character), who, possessing undeniable photos proving his guilt, forces him to become his man, offering silence in return.

The first thing he asks for is the names of all the armed revolutionaries. Giorgio provides them.

Once he gains freedom, he quickly finds himself working in a Strip Club for an old cellmate, the well-connected Neapolitan. Here he starts skimming money from all the girls but more importantly blackmails a delinquent client and his wife Flora, a beautiful Isabella Ferrari, who becomes a sexual slave with whom he falls in love.

Yet, playing with fire gets you burned, and news, like an arrow released from a bow, spreads quickly from mouth to mouth: the Neapolitan, having learned of the betrayal, has his thugs break Giorgio's arm but then forgives him. Moreover, a few days later, once the debt is settled, Flora exits his life. Fortune seems to have turned its back on him.

But those who do not die rise again.

Giorgio betrays the Neapolitan to Lieutenant Anedda, who, having received the tip-off, organizes a raid to capture him during a drug deal. Two birds with one stone: the lieutenant gains recognition as a defender of the law, while Giorgio steals the briefcase with the deal's money.

But the money isn't enough to satisfy the lieutenant. Another, much bigger hit is needed to free Giorgio from the sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

Having done this, he can move to a new city and open a high-class restaurant. Here, to achieve the much-desired rehabilitation, he serves judges and politicians capable of helping him every night; moreover, he meets a girl from a good, God-fearing family with whom to build a family and become a perfectly integrated citizen.

However, before becoming an honest citizen and living happily ever after with his family, Giorgio must resolve another issue. Indeed, the unburied past re-emerges: Lieutenant Anedda visits him in the new city, needing another “favor”...

In this film, there are no multifaceted characters. Giorgio Pellegrini, Lieutenant Anedda, and the Neapolitan are true villains, selfish, almost always unscrupulous, because any sense of scruples is paid dearly. Their victims possess no particular virtues but succumb simply because they have some moral code, and in the universe represented, power belongs to those without scruples. And those in power never hesitate to wield it. Yet the double is everywhere. It exists in the character of those who wear increasingly respectable masks while staining their conscience with ever more heinous sins; it exists in Pellegrini who gradually acquires traits of Lieutenant Anedda; there are Flora and Roberta, the protagonist's two women, one the mirrored double of the other.
The narrative pace is relentless, for about ninety minutes of film, with few descriptive pauses. It is the music alongside the images that sketch out an era. For these reasons, I think here Soavi proves himself a skilled director who, with a good subject in hand, knows how to make an excellent film that deserves a rewatch.