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The "pretty good farce" of family and politics, cf. Capra's State of the Union. Italian socialism in defanged disarray, just the department where a dim academic (Glauco Mauri) can fail upwards as a "moderate progressist," unable to secure the vote of even his aunts. His sister (Elda Tattoli) is a promiscuous Contessa whose staunch belief in the caste system keeps her from marrying any of her affairs, his brother (Pierluigi Aprà) is a young Maoist radical bent on sabotaging the campaign. Accountant (Paolo Graziosi) and secretary (Daniela Surina) complete the quintet, working-class infiltrators and intermediaries between podium and boudoir. "Life has to be violent. Or dangerous, I suppose is the right word." Marco Bellocchio's antic follow-up to Fists in the Pocket, a staccato whirlwind around bourgeois torpor. The nervous energy between tradition and revolution seems on the verge of spilling over into opera, it settles for bursts of analytical slapstick. Irritated at the spare turnout for his first speech, the candidate lashes out at giggling soap peddlers and brats astride bicycles and gets mobbed for his trouble. Locked inside the municipal party headquarters, he and the other bureaucrats roll like marbles from room to room looking for a dinky bomb ticking away in the toilet. (Other gags include the comely stenographer parading a wet shirt following an embrace with her bathtub-soaked boss, and off-key cherubs huddled around a bedridden padre.) The yapping pest of the aristocracy, hazelnuts at the movies and Sleeping Beauty on the abortionist's table. "Everybody knows that the world may turn upside down, but the sister remains untouchable." Losey's The Servant is another key forerunner in a line of thought extending to Anderson's Britannia Hospital. With Alessandro Haber, Claudio Trionfi, Laura De Marchi, and Claudio Cassinelli. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |