Because Parenti serpenti is the real holiday movie

Among those who prefer to take care of themselves at Christmas Mom I missed the plane and those busy finding the lost DVD of Snake relatives, Mario Monicelli’s masterpiece inexplicably unavailable on streaming platforms, we are definitely part of the latter. The film, released in 1992 and became, above all thanks to word of mouth, a small cult, it’s an awkward, inconvenient, itchy title: we are so used to associating holidays with the idyllic climate that they tell us about the advertisements that we often forget that, often, it is the table with all the relatives sitting there fighting for the last slice of smoked salmon the breeding ground for conflicts and poisons withheld or disguised throughout the year. Monicelli, a master who in the course of his brilliant career has given us absolute masterpieces such as The usual unknown, The girl with the gun e My friends, he understood this before the others, choosing to tell Christmas and the New Year for what they are: a minefield on which it is very likely that the masks fall and the truth comes out.

Snake relatives, which originally should have seen among the interpreters also Giorgio Gaber, who refused the role of Alfredo then went to Alessandro Haber, tells the story of a family who, on the occasion of Christmas, gathers in Sulmona, in their parents’ house, to spend the holidays together. Saverio (Paolo Panelli), deputy sergeant of the carabinieri on leave suffering from a mild form of dementia, and Trieste (Pia Velsi), energetic and sprightly grandmother, find themselves to welcome their four children and their families allowing the viewer to get to know credible characters who could actually stand out at any self-respecting table. From Milena (the great Monica Scattini), passionate about TV quizzes and depressed for not being able to have children, to Alessandro (Eugenio Masciari), a post office employee with communist ideas and a libertine wife whose sisters-in-law can’t stand for her exuberance; from Monica, an overweight girl who dreams of becoming a dancer tomorrow Fantastic, to Alfredo, professor of Italian at a female institute in Como who is celibate and without children.

The ordinary Christmas routine marks the times in an orderly way between the Christmas Eve dinner, the midnight mass, the bingo and the exchange of gifts, until, all of a sudden, Trieste and Saverio decide to tell their children that they no longer feel like living alone and who would like to be hosted by one of them. The conflict starts from here: the children themselves will decide who to take on mum and dad, with the promise of receiving in exchange a part of their pension and their home as an inheritance. The end, one of the most bitter and brilliant of Italian cinema, we don’t tell you for fear of spoilers, although we’re pretty sure that’s exactly the reason it threw on Snake relatives that unmentionable aura that has transformed it into a jarring title to which for many it has always been better to prefer the most reassuring An armchair for two. Decades ahead, Monicelli was the first to describe family cynicism with exemplary precision and coldness, and it is a pity not only that the film is not available on the platforms, but also that it has been re-evaluated by the public opinion only after many years (in 1992 he did not even take home the David for the screenplay written by Carmine Amoroso together to that genius of Suso Cecchi D’Amico). It’s time to rediscover it and advertise it as it deserves, both ever and next year, instead of repeating Macaulay Culkin’s lines by heart, let’s not scream out loud “It’s a fine object for classy people”.