First a word of warning to Italian readers: "Africa begins south of Rome", goes an Old Italian saying – this is filmed in the borderland. So, the proud descendants of the Roman culture that they are, they won't like everything about this review.
Rome: ancient cradle of European civilization, which gave us democracy and the alphabet. Rome: modern, buzzing metropolis, city of culture, style and fashion. In Ettore Scolas film we only get to see glimpses of those Romes, which loom far, far in the distance. Scolas Rome is the rotten tooth of a city that once was the heart of an empire. A corpse, so degenerated that only sheer tenacity and stubbornness keeps it alive.
This film could have been shot in any slum in this world, be it in Rio de Janeiro, the trailer-towns of the Midwestern US or one of the gypsy encampments of Eastern Europe. But such an utterly black, cynical comedy like "Brutti, Sporchi e Cattvi" could probably only have been produced in Italy.
In one dilapidated hut lives the Mazzatella clan: a sheer countless number of relatives, each poor, unemployed, unemployable and rotten to the very core. "Proud" head of the family is Giacinto (Nino Manfredi) who has one worry in the world: that his relatives would steal the million lire insurance money which he "earned" by loosing his left eye in a quicklime accident (we don't know how much a million lire was worth back then, but we presume at least a few hundred bucks).
When Giacinto picks up corpulent drifter Iside, bringing her home into the family-bed, his clan decides to take more drastic measures, flavoring his macaroni with rat-poison. However, the one-eyed patriarch survives (with the aid of saltwater and a bicycle-pump) and shows his relations, who's on top of the familial food-chain.
Director Scola wasn't lying when he promised to show us "the dirty, the ugly and the mean"; three terms which not only define Giacinto, his family and the squalor in which they gleefully live. At the same time, he shows us humans with whom we can instinctively relate to, not mere caricatures of the poor or corrupt. Scolas film is powerful, even important: it makes us laugh and at the same time, makes us wonder what we're laughing at.
In that sense, films like Emir Kusturicas "Black Cat, White Cat" or Michael Raeburns "Triompf" probably own more to Scola than the average viewer might have realized.
9/10
Rome: ancient cradle of European civilization, which gave us democracy and the alphabet. Rome: modern, buzzing metropolis, city of culture, style and fashion. In Ettore Scolas film we only get to see glimpses of those Romes, which loom far, far in the distance. Scolas Rome is the rotten tooth of a city that once was the heart of an empire. A corpse, so degenerated that only sheer tenacity and stubbornness keeps it alive.
This film could have been shot in any slum in this world, be it in Rio de Janeiro, the trailer-towns of the Midwestern US or one of the gypsy encampments of Eastern Europe. But such an utterly black, cynical comedy like "Brutti, Sporchi e Cattvi" could probably only have been produced in Italy.
In one dilapidated hut lives the Mazzatella clan: a sheer countless number of relatives, each poor, unemployed, unemployable and rotten to the very core. "Proud" head of the family is Giacinto (Nino Manfredi) who has one worry in the world: that his relatives would steal the million lire insurance money which he "earned" by loosing his left eye in a quicklime accident (we don't know how much a million lire was worth back then, but we presume at least a few hundred bucks).
When Giacinto picks up corpulent drifter Iside, bringing her home into the family-bed, his clan decides to take more drastic measures, flavoring his macaroni with rat-poison. However, the one-eyed patriarch survives (with the aid of saltwater and a bicycle-pump) and shows his relations, who's on top of the familial food-chain.
Director Scola wasn't lying when he promised to show us "the dirty, the ugly and the mean"; three terms which not only define Giacinto, his family and the squalor in which they gleefully live. At the same time, he shows us humans with whom we can instinctively relate to, not mere caricatures of the poor or corrupt. Scolas film is powerful, even important: it makes us laugh and at the same time, makes us wonder what we're laughing at.
In that sense, films like Emir Kusturicas "Black Cat, White Cat" or Michael Raeburns "Triompf" probably own more to Scola than the average viewer might have realized.
9/10