Bianca

Extreme clearness of mind can be as necessary as breath, and rigour felt as the only decent way through life. And then it is very hard.

Just watch it.

In this mordant satire Nanni Moretti (who also directed) plays a new teacher in a radical Roman school called the Marilyn Monrroe School, where there is a jukebox in every classroom! Discipline is frowned upon and the resident psychiatrist is not for the students but for the teachers. The teacher becomes a suspect in a series of murders (not an uncommon temptation for teachers) and displays an insidious obsession with molding the lives of others to comply with his own inhibitions and obsessions. Bianca is the name of the girl he pursues fruitlessly. The ending of the film, which we cannot spoil for you, was considered excessively severe for the Woody Allen-like proceedings which form the body of much of the film, but we feel it is a delightful, clever, and devilish piece of work from a director better known to us for his later film CARO DIARIO.

I watched this movie back in 1983 on a film festival in Moscow - probably before the official release and after 25+ years I still remember the stunning effect it produced on me and my wife. Besides the wild interpretation of the ending and what was going throughout the movie, you cannot escape very effective visual way of playing on contrasts of everything: names - Bianca (Italian for white) with the char-black hair, clothing and furniture - all either ivory white or pitch black, and even that famous giant glass flute - full of very dark (almost black) chocolate - appears in the pristine white surrounding.

The moral stance on the murders going on on the eventual background leaves no doubt of only choice between darkness and light, good or evil, and with dialogs - from what I vaguely remember - mostly non-existent - just cops questioning and radio or TV hosts talking.

After watching this film, my wife and could not stop talking about all those symbols and each of them meant and who did what to whom. At that time there was no internet, IMDb and I never met anybody else (and my life stretches across 3 continents and very many movie-loving friends) who ever seen this movie so we could discuss the details.

I would gladly see it again. Looking back - I think it was way ahead of its time in its visual expressiveness and spooky plot but as Dennis Miller use to say: "this of course is just my opinion and I can be wrong."

If you into figurative forms of artist expressions and enjoy deciphering symbols and metaphors (yawn), then you'll find this film very entertaining. Otherwise, it's a good tragic comedy that could have been better.