Italy on Page & Screen - Italy - page 1841

Tragicomedies
Italy's best comedians skewer the exact spot where pathos intersects the funny bone. A
group of ageing pranksters turn on one another in Mario Monicelli's Amici miei (My
Friends; 1975), a satire reflecting Italy's own postwar midlife crisis. Italy's recent woes
feed Massimiliano Bruno's biting Viva L'Italia (2012), its cast of corrupt politicians and
nepotists cutting close to the core. Italy is slapped equally hard by Matteo Garrone's Real-
ity (2012). Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, the darkly comic
film revolves around a Neapolitan fishmonger desperately seeking fame through reality
TV. Darker still is La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful; 1997), in which a father tries to pro-
tect his son from the brutalities of a Jewish concentration camp by pretending it's all a
game - an Oscar-winning turn for actor-director Roberto Benigni.
Shock & Horror
Sunny Italy's darkest dramas deliver more style, suspense and falling bodies than Prada
platform heels on a slippery Milan runway. In Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966)
a swinging-'60s fashion photographer spies dark deeds unfolding in a photo of an elusive
Vanessa Redgrave. Gruesome deeds unfold at a ballet school in Dario Argento's Suspiria
(1977), while in Mario Monicelli's Un borghese piccolo piccolo (An Average Little Man;
1977), an ordinary man goes to extraordinary lengths for revenge. The latter stars Roman
acting great Alberto Soldi in a standout example of a comedian nailing a serious role.
Crueller and bloodier than their American counterparts, Italian zombie films enjoy internation-
al cult status. One of the best is director Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters; 1979).
Fulci's other gore classics include City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981) and The House
by the Cemetery (1981).