Andreotti was really recognized guilty of association with Mafia until 1980. This was probably the most important piece of information to be delivered to the audience, but it was instead concealed with legalese in a small blurb of rolling text among the end titles, where it's easy to understand just the opposite.
There's an unspoken agreement in the Italian medias, for this truth must not really be spoken or printed. We must all go on pretending Andreotti was acquitted of all charges because he was innocent. His lawyer, the one who lost the appeal, went on to lie and everybody in the press and TVs pretended to believe her. Now she's a politician herself. Go figure uh?
Paolo Sorrentino, despite trying to be oh-so-courageous, can't manage to state it in a simple and understandable way.
The screenplay is in itself a little messy. While in a sense it tries (and succeeds) in conveying the intricacies and complexities of politics through artistic devices, and to point out how blurred is the line which separates the underlying blunt truths from the soft words of the lies which the public must be lullabied into - the final outcome is that even I had some trouble to make all the facts and faces overlap with their real-life counterparts. And that believing I have a fair (though certainly far from complete) understanding of some of the basic facts that underpin the rise and fall of one of Italy's most controversial and powerful figure in all of my country's recent history.
I can only wonder what insights the unsuspecting audience may have gained from this viewing. And with the great deal of time the film spends to describe in detail all the quirks that make this otherwise alien figure all so human, eventually the effect may turn out to be sympathy for the devil.
The task was certainly not an easy one, but the outcome is a thorough disappointment.
There's an unspoken agreement in the Italian medias, for this truth must not really be spoken or printed. We must all go on pretending Andreotti was acquitted of all charges because he was innocent. His lawyer, the one who lost the appeal, went on to lie and everybody in the press and TVs pretended to believe her. Now she's a politician herself. Go figure uh?
Paolo Sorrentino, despite trying to be oh-so-courageous, can't manage to state it in a simple and understandable way.
The screenplay is in itself a little messy. While in a sense it tries (and succeeds) in conveying the intricacies and complexities of politics through artistic devices, and to point out how blurred is the line which separates the underlying blunt truths from the soft words of the lies which the public must be lullabied into - the final outcome is that even I had some trouble to make all the facts and faces overlap with their real-life counterparts. And that believing I have a fair (though certainly far from complete) understanding of some of the basic facts that underpin the rise and fall of one of Italy's most controversial and powerful figure in all of my country's recent history.
I can only wonder what insights the unsuspecting audience may have gained from this viewing. And with the great deal of time the film spends to describe in detail all the quirks that make this otherwise alien figure all so human, eventually the effect may turn out to be sympathy for the devil.
The task was certainly not an easy one, but the outcome is a thorough disappointment.