Siccità

Italian director Paolo Virzí has frequently chosen choral structures for his movies, often with excellent results, amongst which excels The Human Capital (2014), and such model is selected again for his last film, Dry (Siccità), premiered at 79th Venice Film Festival, where it also bagged a minor prize.

A dystopic Rome, without water after three rainless years and with the river Tiber completely dry, is the desolate set where the sad comedies of pathetic characters of even drier lives are staged. They run after each other, brush against each other and are relate with each other in parched days and nights filled with different sorrows, separate yet linked and intertwined, made even more dire by the start of a pandemic caused by the proliferation of ever-present bugs. And everybody is waiting for the refreshing rain that could quench the soul and clean the bodies, allowing the rebirth of whatever humanity might have remained in the hearts of the characters, like the small plant that is cared for, thrown away and salvaged by one of the main characters in the movie.

Dry is a bold movie, for the evident references to the Covid-19 pandemic, which might have easily made it banal, and an interesting one, for the cinematography and the soundtrack; the director is well supported by a cast of some of the best Italian actors and actresses, that are able to catch and keep the viewers' attention even when, and it happens frequently, the script, the product of four writers (maybe too many!), tends to run dry as well, like it reflects the torrid climate that leaves the characters gasping.

Italian cinema, both with its comedies as well as with its neo-realistic roots, historically has not given much attention to dystopic tales, much closer to other regions' filmographies, and in this context Paolo Virzí's latest movie surely represents an interesting and innovative effort. The basic idea behind the movie is good and the movie itself is enjoyable to watch and offers quite enough food for thought. Yet, it struggles to coordinate all the stories it choses to tell, that sometimes remain hanged to strings too thin and dry to allow the film narrative lifeblood to run smoothly and sufficiently nourish all the movie's characters and subplots. Hence, the director is forced to choose forced twists that, as a consequence, become obvious and that in the end take away some merit from a movie that, for the way it has been crafted, directed and acted, could have been something better and could have left the spectator with something more than just a striking balance of humor and sadness, a remarkable cinematography, with the excellent special effects of the dry Tiber and the amazing lighting, and the great, even if not homogeneous, cast's performances.

A disaster.

Francesca Archibugi, Paolo Giordano and Francesco Piccolo with their silly, predictable and politically correct screenplays, where everything is forced and ridiculously leftist, are destroying the credibility of the best Italian director, the only heir to true Italian comedy. The actors try to believe in the series of platitudes proposed by the script but then give in.

I hope that Virzì will leave this group and return to the arms of Francesco Bruni with whom he has made his best films.

Virzì achieves greatness when he mixes comedy and drama by recounting his Livorno and Tuscany. She should dare to go back to the small but significant. A very good one to Claudia Pandolfi.

All together when you calm down your feelings you will find this movie as an smart approach to the growing problems nowadays. As I know some of the names in its cast, I could say it has, as someone else said, a high-calibre cast. How that multiple story of growing process of disease, poverty, destitution goes, your conclusion will be that all comes and goes very fast, leaving us being powerless, what actually happens in mostly cases in life. I would see it also as some kind of criticism of the political elite and to those who have capital and rule to the situation, overshadowing the voice of the majority, which is in despair.

The makers of this film seem to have started off with a check-list: Drought caused by climate change? Check. Diseases caused by climate change? Check. Social stress caused by climate change? Check, etc. Then, they created characters and situations to exemplify each item on the list. Unfortunately, 'make a good film' wasn't on the list. The actors are all acting their hearts out, but it's difficult to believe in, much less care about, the characters they're playing. The actors, sets, and photography seem to glow with a preternatural sheen showing that that not even a years-long drought can begin to affect bella figura.

"Siccità" is a drama about a 3 years complete drought that hits Rome.

While the disgraceful italian filmography of the last 20 years (with very few exceptions) might in itself represent the inexorable decadence of a country and of its intellectual vitality, it's much more rewarding and thought provoking to witness such aridity with the aid of a good production.

Virzì, who was always capable of interpreting the gaze of youth and naivety, in this last decade focused on different subjects without - IMHO - being able to produce anything on par with its best older movies.

With "Siccità" instead he seems finally ready to write-direct (co-write) an incredibly complex and mature story with dozens of actors, drama and comedy, young and old people, social commentary and poetry in scene.

A little slow (I have watched it at 1,5x and didn't even notice) and while not a masterpiece for the genre - indeed it lacks that surrealist touch which seems so dear to nowadays top creators and audiences dealing with dystopia - it totally deserves an 8.