An ambitious, complex, surprising project. Marco Bellocchio presents to Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28, 2022) his new effort, Night exteriorfive and a half hours of reviewing the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. He promises that this is the first and last series of his career, but he prefers the definition of a two-part film. Simultaneously with the debut on the Croisette, the project arrives in Italian cinemas on May 18 and June 9and then arrive on Rai Uno in the fall.
The story sees Fabrizio Gifuni in the role of the protagonist and Margherita Buy in those of his wife Eleonora. Toni Servillo lends his face to Pope Paul VI, while Fausto Russo Alessi plays Francesco Cossiga while Daniela Marra and Gabriel Montesi become Red Brigades for the film. Almost twenty years ago the filmmaker had already told about the kidnapping in Good morning night and this time it promises a new perspective.
Italy in 1978 sees the state at war with the Red Brigades, left-wing extremists who held the DC President hostage for 55 days. This is the lapse of time told by Bellocchio, which leaves room for the points of view of the various characters on the story. “At the time of Good morning night – explains the director – the weight of ideology was still heavy and I had very clear ideas on which side to play. I didn’t want to see the tragedy in its inevitability ».
On the basis of an in-depth research on archive images, the 82-year-old filmmaker still grants himself poetic licenses: “Everything that is true – he comments – is also false, on the other hand I am not a historian but I have worked with a team of experts and we wrote this story as a novel that touches the heart, passion, interest. In some cases I have expressed the powerlessness of politicians giving voice to those who considered Moro a madman but is it really madness to want to live, as they say in a scene? I have no intention of defending Giulio Andreotti, but freeing 14 brigades in exchange for the statesman would have been a bold choice ».
The protagonist echoes him: “The question that arises is another: why the only time the firmness line was used was during this kidnapping? Before and after it was dealt with the terrorists ». Gifuni, on the other hand, proceeds with his reading drawing on his own experience: «I was eleven years old, I remember the parents rushing to school to pick up their children. I lived in Rome, which in a few hours turned into a militarized city, with the constant sound of helicopters, checkpoints. As a child, what impressed me was my disappointment at having skipped the first school bus trip ”. According to the actor, the aim of the film is to re-tie the historical threads of memory, which today seems «a dystopian nightmare, almost incomprehensible. In staging it, I felt anger and resentment but I don’t like to give Moro the image of a martyr from the altar. I see it as a restless body, not pacified, a ghost that does not accept to be put in a box and Bellocchio balances the telling of the story with the various points of view ».
There is everything on stage and impotence winds, at various levels, including that of the ecclesiastical hierarchies. The Pope, comments Toni Servillo, “is a man in conflict but I don’t consider it in doubt. He treats Moro like a son, he is in shock at the kidnapping and at one point he tries to talk to the men of the BR, not to the organization, even asking a parish priest for advice on how to touch people’s minds ». There are no events in black and white, the fresco by Exterior Night is a riot of grays.
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Source: Vanity Fair
