Roberto Faenza
I Vicerè

It is with the awareness of being completely inadequate for the task I have chosen to undertake that I set out to talk about "I vicerè," the latest effort by Roberto Faenza; inadequacy partly due to not having read the novel by De Roberto from which the film is derived, partly due to the substantial prejudice towards the author that accompanied me as I entered the theater.

"I hated his last films," I said to a fellow viewer, referring in particular to that unwatchable mess that is "I giorni dell'abbandono," in which the otherwise good performance of an innocent (and always neurotic) Margherita Buy was squandered amidst pretentious dialogues and rather questionable directorial choices (I still dream at night about the subjective shot of the lizard). I admit I have never delved into this author's work, who once enchanted me with "Jona che visse nella balena," perhaps due to the repeated disappointments following the viewing of useless and boring films like "Prendimi l'anima" and "Marianna Ucria."

Nevertheless, I don't believe I will delve into it now, after having watched the work in question. I tried to forget the controversies that accompanied the film's release for 120 minutes, the pompous words of a director who, cut out from the Festa di Roma, cried conspiracy and censorship, my own prejudices, and the terrible news that a friend of mine fed me half a second before the opening credits ("apparently it started as a TV drama" – argh, I spent 7 euros to watch a TV drama!!!), and I began, pure like a fool with a blank slate for a brain, to immerse myself in the 19th-century Sicily where the narrated events unfold.

The story is about the Uzeda family, descendants of the Spanish viceroys of Sicily of Charles V, straddling the Bourbon domination and the birth of the Italian State, seen through the eyes of young Consalvo, who first observes with detachment the misdeeds and silent horrors inhabiting his rotten family core, and then reveals himself (in a hasty but striking finale) interested as much as his relatives in power and the survival of the lineage, turning to politics and provoking laughter in the theater with a forcibly compromising speech. Not having read the novel, I don’t know how faithful this cinematic adaptation is, but this matters little to a film viewer. And unfortunately, as a film, "I vicerè" is failing on many fronts. First of all, due to unfortunate casting choices, the emotions described by the characters are stylized when not barely sketched: excluding a good Lando Buzzanca (who probably directs himself, given the other actors left to their own devices) in the role of the despotic pater familias Giacomo, who amplifies his grotesque traits too much, the supporting actors are often inadequate, Preziosi is fake and theatrical, and Capotondi is miscast. Elsewhere, Faenza confirms himself as a director as ambitious as he is "coarse," simplistic: he lacks the intensity of a true author, the sensitivity of a director as an artist, the ability to magically harmonize the "small" and the "big" story.

Everything in his film sounds as false and obvious as the subject matter is incandescent: and it really is, as in about two hours of footage we witness betrayals, abortions, incest, lustful priests and their busty mistresses, romantic loves, and equally romantic and desperate suicides. But none of these things truly touch the viewer, anesthetized as they are by a sterile and flat narrative and a glossy, fashionable style that merely films a predictable postcard Sicily and pedantically emphasizes key scenes with horrendous slow motions... the worst of cinema pretending to be artful.