Il Caimano.

With national elections just two weeks away in Italy, Il Caimano (The Cayman), Nanni Moretti's latest, which Deborah Young calls an "entertaining comedy with an electrifying critique of Silvio Berlusconi" in Variety, has opened all across Italy, infuriating the prime minister, naturally, and the right in general, as Peter Popham reports from Rome for the Independent. "Yet if the Italian opposition were hoping for a work that, like Fahrenheit 9/11 in the US, would inspire supporters, they hoped in vain," notes Popham. "Like all Moretti's films, it is too personal and idiosyncratic to be propaganda."

Interestingly, neither Popham nor Young mention that the film-within-film structure is at least somewhat reminiscent of Jan Henrik Stahlberg's Bye Bye Berlusconi!, though Lee Marshall does drop the title in passing (along with the documentary Viva Zapatero!) in his review for Screen Daily. For Marshall, Moretti's "a fascinating experiment, and one that very nearly succeeds." Still, it does sound fun. Young: "Film buffs will delight in the procession of Italian directors who flash by in cameos, as well as salutes to helmers Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki. Newsreel footage of Berlusconi appearing at his most tasteless before the European Parliament is a jewel."

Update: Cineuropa reports on the film's "strong opening weekend at the box office."

Posted by dwhudson at March 27, 2006 3:28 AM