Hunting a political animal

>> Nanni Moretti on his new film Il Caimano,
about erstwhile Italian PM and
“crocodile” Silvio Berlusconi

PURPOSE-DRIVEN: Jasmine Trinca and Silvio Orlando

by MARK SLUTSKY

It’s hard to say whether the strange and sometimes frightening career of Silvio Berlusconi, twice prime minister of Italy, has truly come to an end now that he’s left office. But for the time being, the flamboyant media magnate is probably occupying himself more with mollifying his wife, who recently published a front-page letter in newspaper La Repubblica demanding he apologize for flirting with other women, than controlling the destiny of the country.

Some credit for his ouster might go to director Nanni Moretti (Dear Diary, The Son’s Room), whose film Il Caimano was released on the eve of the 2006 election and was one of the few examples of open criticism of Berlusconi (the “crocodile” of the title) in the mass media, of which the erstwhile P.M. owned a huge percentage.

“I was very much amazed that nobody talked about the incredible political adventures of this man, one man who owns three television stations and around which there are many, many question marks about the beginnings of his economic fortunes,” Moretti says, speaking to the Mirror at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The film itself is a strange mélange of genres. Silvio Orlando stars as down-on-his-luck producer Bruno Bonomo, who stumbles on a script about Berlusconi by ambitious young screenwriter Teresa (Jasmine Trinca). Somehow, he ends up filming it despite his disintegrating family life, financial troubles and the obvious difficulties of making a movie about Berlusconi’s controversial and scandal-ridden tenure.

Why the mix of family comedy and political drama? “Unlike the young protagonist, Teresa, I did not want to make a film only about Berlusconi,” Moretti says. “I wanted to tell not just one story, I wanted to tell many stories. This is a story about love, about separation, an homage to cinema and also a political story.”

SHUNNING SELFCENSORSHIP: Moretti

He goes on: “Teresa thinks that cinema must be useful for a purpose. I don’t think that. I think that, first of all, a film must be a good film. She shoots her Caimano for other people, whereas I made my Caimano entirely for myself. I don’t make movies to change people’s minds. If, on the other hand, my films, in addition to moving and entertaining people, also induces the electorate to ask questions, all the better.”

Even so, challenging Berlusconi was something amazingly few people were willing to do. “Directors and producers didn’t do this for three reasons,” he says. “The first difficulty was in financing the film, because part of the funding comes from television networks, which weren’t interested in doing a story about Berlusconi, both state-run and his own networks. The second reason is self-censorship, because screenwriters, directors and producers didn’t even try to get a film like this produced. And the third reason is that Berlusconi and other so-called ‘new political characters’ in Italy’s Right are so incredible, so amazing, that it is very difficult for a fiction film to keep up, to create something that’s even better, even stronger, even more amazing than they are.”

IL CAIMANO OPENS THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 23.
IN ADDITION, THE CINÉ- MATHÈQUE QUÉBÉCOISE
WILL BE HOSTING A RETROSPECTIVE OF MORETTI’S
FILMS THROUGH MARCH 31. FOR DETAILS, SEE
WWW.CINEMATHEQUE.QC.CA