Film d'amore e d'anarchia (ovvero stamattina
alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza), 1973
[Film of Love and Anarchy (or At Ten o'clock This Morning in Via
dei Fiori in the Infamous House of Prostitution)/Love and Anarchy]
On
the idyllic countryside of Italy in the 1930s, a humble and mild
mannered peasant named Tonino (Giancarlo Giannini) witnesses the
brutal execution of his eccentric but affable elder relative, Michael
Sgaravento, for undisclosed political agitation by the carabinieri.
Entrusted earlier by Sgaravento to hide a mysterious suitcase on
his behalf, Tonino decides to uphold the dotty old man's ideology
and validate his trust by assuming Sgaravento's seemingly idle declaration
of embarking on a mission to assassinate Benito Mussolini. With
Sgaravento's suitcase in hand, Tonino arrives in Rome at a high-priced
bordello under the pretense of visiting his cousin - a seasoned
and highly sought after call girl named Salomè (Mariangela
Melato) whose popularity with the Fascists makes her an ideal operative
for the anarchists. An opportunity soon presents itself when the
brash and arrogant Spatoletti (Eros Pagni), Mussolini's head of
security for the secret service, calls to arrange a Sunday rendezvous
with Salomè. Reasoning that she cannot leave her naive and
impressionable cousin at a house of ill repute, Salomè convinces
Spatoletti to bring Tonino and a fellow prostitute called Tripolina
(Lina Polito) to the remote villa. Tonino and Tripolina's mutual
attraction is immediately palpable, and the two become inseparable.
However, as the appointed hour of destiny with Mussolini approaches,
the hapless and lovestruck Tonino soon finds himself struggling
to retain his focus and determination to carry out Sgaravento's
final mission.
Lina Wertmüller creates an audacious, darkly comic, and incisive
portrait of humanity, compassion, and loyalty in Love
and Anarchy. Using bold, aggressive colors and disorienting,
acute camera angles that exaggerate scale, Wertmüller sets
an absurd and farcical tone in order to chronicle the hypocrisy,
self-defeating, and perverted idealism equally inherent in the political
repression of the Fascists and the partisan resistance struggle:
the bizarre position of Sgaravento's body after the assassination;
the carnivalesque exhibition of prostitutes; Spatoletti's disproportionate
framing against Tonino. Through the depiction of characters as grotesque
caricatures, Wertmüller further reflects the dehumanization
and objectification of the underprivileged inherent in the possession
of power and authority. Inevitably, as the epilogue reveals the
words of famed anarchist, Errico Malatesta's Machiavellian rationalization
for the destructive acts committed under the provocative tenets
of creating political agitation, what emerges is a vicious cycle
of violence, exploitation, despair, and repression.
©
Acquarello 2002. All rights reserved.
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In
wartime Europe, two haggard army deserters attempt to navigate in
the darkness through a disorienting forest after escaping from a military
train bound for Stalingrad only to witness a mass civilian execution
by German soldiers in an open field. Retreating into the woods, Francesco
(Piero Di Iorio) expresses anger and regret over his acquiescence
to the wave of military aggression ushered by Mussolini and the Fascists
that resulted in such senseless deaths. Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini),
in turn, reveals that he has committed murder before the war and attempts
to rationalize his actions - recalling the events that brought him
to the battlefront - as he sought to save his sister, Concettina's
(Elena Fiore) reputation after she is driven into prostitution by
her insincere and disreputable lover, Totonno (Mario Conti) with empty
promises of marriage. Alternating between recollections of his life
before the war as a self-absorbed, but honor-bound gangster, and present-day
circumstances as a desperate and unscrupulous concentration camp prisoner-of-war,
Pasqualino's life emerges as a morally reprehensible culmination of
impulsive bravado, irresponsible alliances, and instinctual survival.