The italian red brigades. 1978. A big shot politician, Aldo Moro, is held hostage in an apartment crammed with ideology-chirping "Red Brigade" terrorists. (Wikipedia-knowledge about Aldo Moro: he was a mediating force in Italian politics, a two-time prime minister (for Democrazia Cristiana) intent on opting for a compromise with the communist party in spite of pressure from the US. Italy was governed by coalitions for some years. The Red Brigaders were not happy about the situation.) Buongiorno, notte (2003) is a quite awful & lazy & slightly sexist movie about a fairly interesting theme. I mean, the story could have been dealt with in a different way & some political tensions were touched upon that could have been developed into an interesting movie. But no, that didn't happen. There is a clear agenda & that the film makes eager attempt to drive home a handful of points. Even though the Red Brigade members are not (exclusively) portrayed as ruthless killer types the film's take on "moral/political struggle" is far too simplistic, far too schematic & psychologized to be insightful. Although I know next to nothing about the red brigades & their activities in late 70's Italy (I know they were very critical of the communist party), I am convinced that this movie is unfair to everybody & everything. Of course, the movie had to focus on a sweet & innocent-looking young woman with eyes of a deer who is a communist radical because of what happened to Daddy. When she does not work in the library ("you are not allowed to smoke in here!"), she hangs out with ideology-crazed Terrorists. In a profound cut, the camera zooms in a copy of Marx' & Engels' The holy family resting next to the poor terrorist's crib. They read Marx, what a surprise! A young man at work tries to call the poor girl back to Conscience. He's a Poet. He serenades her with: "You act as though you were not the young and beautiful woman that you are". We are expected to symphathize with his insights & hold this to be a great way to tell a story about political fractions in late seventies Italy. The film ends with a bombastic scene from Moro's funeral. The pope is carried inside the church in a big chair as he is the official of the funeral. Regrettably, this movie did not provoke me to reflect on gruesome political violence or the call of Conscience. Instead, I wondered: what material is the pope's hat made of? Can I have one?
An interesting piece of information I didn't know about: Antonio Negri, who was a part of the autonomous movement at that time, was one of those accused of masterminding the Moro kidnapping & murder but the charges were dropped later on.
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Back in those days (2003), I used to visit a small cinema quite often, maybe twice a week. Its programme was rather off main stream, so the audience consisted mainly of a few regulars. After having seen this one, I exchanged some words with one of them on the way out, I recall; a red headed syndicalist with a "skepparkrans". There was no disagreement. The film was terrible, but the documentary pictures from the funeral had something.
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