Nanni Moretti
Il Caimano

It is not simply a film about Berlusconi. Nor is it, as it would seem for a long part, a film about a film about Berlusconi. It is a film about our society, about the despair of a man, the dreamy and honest ideological drive of a young woman, the betrayals of companions and friends. It is, as always, a very complex film. And Moretti knows, when directing, to leave the viewer with far more questions than answers. On the other hand, this is always a prerogative of the greats (above all Kubrick and Fellini).

Those who criticize Moretti (theory tested in the field a hundred times out of a hundred) perhaps labeling him as aprioristically left-wing, is because they either haven’t seen Nanni's films, or have seen one... once... a long time ago (they haven’t seen them...). Because those who have always watched and 'cultivated' Moretti's films know that they are never apologetics of one of the many lefts, they know that they are never works 'commissioned' by the powerful of the moment, the small government or the little opposition of the moment. And most importantly, they know that they are works capable of annoying a certain left as much as Allen's are able to annoy a part of the Jewish world. Moretti, like Allen, is indeed a free artist, and for this reason, he annoys. An old scheme, I would even say ancient, but always sadly valid.

In this film, we have a very painful separation (from him, presumably due to her betrayal, which, however, is not dwelled upon), we have the environment of Italian cinema, and therefore Roman, we have the posthumous resurrection of the trash of the '70s, a first-time screenwriter (beautiful, but this is a consideration from a man, neither an observer nor much less a reviewer...), flighty and treacherous collaborators and actors, money that doesn't come, that comes conditioned and that eventually comes thanks to the sale of his own share of the house...

And then there is Berlusconi, the subject of the film that the young director, transparent, ideological but without fanaticism, sincere and still not disenchanted (almost an ultra-young female alter-ego), wants to make at all costs, almost more for a common good and purpose than for her own. And it's a Berlusconi/symbol, more than the real man (who is a symbol anyway...: it would be a long discussion...). A symbol of this television era of embarrassing functional illiteracy, a symbol of the brainwashing that many Italians have undergone, and undergo, daily, in the last more than twenty years, in front of the useless bright box. In short: it is a literary/cinematic figure, a ‘character’ that has the misfortune of being real, but the fact that he is is almost, paradoxically, irrelevant. The film focuses on what we have become, and on one of the main protagonists of this (horrible, on this I totally agree) metamorphosis. And the film about the film serves as a backdrop to the personal events of the always perfect Silvio Orlando, just as the latter in turn serves as a backdrop to the film about the film. And here lies the cinematic complexity of the work. Many ‘films about films’ have been seen, as have ‘films within films’, but this one has, technically, an absolute originality.

Everything appears to revolve around a center that is not there (not even the beautiful Jasmine Trinca is the all-round protagonist of the work...), and every story essentially plays a supporting role. The end, then, catastrophically fantastic but furnished with all real phrases, leaves ample room for pessimism and disenchantment, in the context of a film (within the film) that is made, but self-produced, the work of an aspiring screenwriter and a failed director of 'B movies' from the ‘70s (beautiful both in the titles and the covers).

A strange film, very well conceived, with striking opening and endings. In between much disenchantment, much good cinema, many questions.