Videocracy

Much has been sad about this documentary, before it's been shown. Europe outside Italy has its view clear. How is Berlusconi possible? You meet this agent with Mussolini songs in his cell phone. You meet the paparazzi king who with a considerable amount of self irony calls himself a Robin Hood, who takes from the poor and gives to himself. You also meet the 26-year-old worker, still living with his mother, who wants to be famous, combining Ricky Martin songs with karate tricks.

What we are supposed to think is obvious, but who is to blame? Is it the TV viewers who let this happened or someone else? The hen or the egg once again. That's the discussion which really ought to start from this film.

A brilliant snapshot of how political and media monopolies in the ever-smiling face of Silvio Berlusconi have shaped public opinion and the dreams of Italian youth today. My only complaint is that the documentary focused too much on surface self-evident issues like the power of television instead of deeper-rooted issues in Italy like sexism and fascism. The documentary never questioned why young women restrict their potential and dreams to becoming the next Italian WAG, Silvio's mistress or a veline or why Lele Mora unabashedly has Mussolini-era anthems as his cellphone ringtone. Institutionalized sexism, poverty and lack of education are only hinted at as the doc centers around the more digestible issues of narcissism and Italian mama - son drama. A must see film nonetheless

It feels as if it was put together in five minutes. Pity because the idea is great if not particularly new. Depressing as hell to think that, somehow, this reality represent us and I'm afraid it does. It is a decease of our own making. It's in our DNA, if you don't believe me listen to Mario Monicelli in his interview at Otto e Mezzo. "We're a country of "miserabili" (miserables). As long as someone has the guts to say it, there is hope. Here, the statement comes from Sweden of all places and seems amazed at things that us in Italy know perfectly well and complain about, perhaps, but in private. I think that Berlusconi truly represents the majority of Italians even those who don't want to admit it. Lele Mora gave me the chills and Fabrizio Corona who comes from a very intelligent, prominent journalistic family comes across as an ignorant product of his day. He indulges in a long naked scene, soaping his privates under the shower. What the hell was that!? We're suppose to be the Country of culture par excellence, how funny. We're the Country of the façade instead. We love cinema but we dub it, robbing the souls of the original actors, not just their voices. We divide the projections of films, arbitrarily, in Primo Tempo e Secondo Tempo (First Part and Second Part). We really don't give a damn and some of the consequences are painfully clear in "Videocracy" I only wish this documentary could be taken a bit more seriously.

I respect the opinion of viewers that wished for a more detailed explanation of how Berlusconi ascended to power imposing his videocracy on the whole Country. On the other hand, who let him do that and why is still debated in Italy and abroad, subject to political interpretation and therefore a quite tedious and convoluted story to tell. The audience here gets to experience the Italian TV and media dominated reality from a purely naturalistic angle, almost like an ethologist would look at a society of ants. The movie, I believe, is a lot more powerful and compelling that way: the viewers can go through all the the feelings of incredulity, anguish, disgust, pity and anger it generates without anyone saying out loud that they should, making those feelings all the more intense and true.

what strikes me about the reviews is the shock of people in the US who feel that this monopoly is so different from the so called 2 party system here in the US. first off, things aren't much better in this country with regards to poor taste, exploitation of women, and a cattle like docility of the population. 2ndly, at least ital isn't so involved in slaughtering millions around the globe. while there's shock aplenty when those numbers come up at the end giving Italy's stature in rank among countries in the world for issues such as "freedom" and "sexual equality" I can't imagine that the US is all that far ahead. in fact, "freedom" seems like such a slippery concept... the health care problems here mean far less freedom to have live all that long in this country, our educational system is becoming so exclusive, while belonging in the EU, any citizen of Italy can study at any major university in the entire EU for free, that kind of empowerment can engender freedom of a sort people here can only long for.

The movie did move pretty slowly at times and more information might have been conveyed at the expense of long shots that didn't really use up the screen time all that convincingly.