Hammamet

Who controls the present controls the past, Orwell wrote in 1984.This movie is a courageous attempt to restore Bettino Craxi as a human being, after having been politically destroyed by left-wing judges in the only judiciary-driven coup of Italian history. In itself is not much more than a documentary but Favino puts such heart and soul into his character that makes the movie enjoyable and didactic.

Uscito oggi. Visto al cinema.

Il film è fatto bene e le due ore scorrono veloci senza sosta. Tratta una parte della vita di Craxi che vi lascio scoprire quando andrete al cinema.

Favino è un attore dalle capacità ormai eccelse ed è un peccato che sia italiano, essendo il cinema italiano poco quotato all'estero: se fosse americano o francese avrebbe già vinto un Oscar o premi di rilevanza simile.

Gli altri attori ruotano tutti attorno a Craxi e quindi sembrano tutti secondari.

Il film è ben diretto, senza pause, ottima fotografia, ottime musiche.

Speriamo vinca molti premi.

If you grant (a lot of) indulgence to the controversial protagonist, you'll enjoy this nostalgic movie (Amelio is the right director), taste some subtleties, and praise the great performance of the lead actor - "adesso li fa tutti Favino", and for a very good reason - and the whole cast. On the other side, even forgetting about history, you'll also notice the flaws: the most important political facts are just fainted, the identities are hidden (even ridiculously, as for Craxi's sons), there's no real plot (the Vincenzo's son escamotage does not work) which contribuites to the image of a insufferable crumbling king

Only human drama, when you talk about a polician you must talk about his political acts.

This film it's a not-storical narration based just on the ideas of the daughther, a woman that is never been objective. And we can understand her, but not who exploit her.

The damage that italian politic called Craxi (not nominated in the film but too easy to recognize) come out in the scandal know as "tangentopoli" is really very hard to forget and it's incredible like a movie can ignore what's happened in the latest 80's end early 90's.

Craxi wasn't the only guilty, that's sure. But this is never been a reason for absolution.

Favino it's a great actor, and all the cast is very good but in this kind of movie we can't close up on the artist,

Most contemporary Italian movies suffer from lack of a tight script or at the very least a story with a start, middle and ending. Way too often they are assembled as a series of loosely knit sketches or rambling, confused tales. This one belongs to the second category.

After a promising start, where the Italian Socialist leader Craxi is shown at the height of his power, the scene changes abruptly to Hammamet several years later, with the politician as a broken, disgraced, sick man living in a large villa with tight security. I had to read the synopsis to learn that none of the "real" people involved in the story are called with their real names (?) for unspecified reasons and it is only because I have a vague knowledge of the facts that I know how Craxi ended up in Tunisia.

However, the narrative fails miserably in the "show, don't tell" department, with relevant episodes of the past narrated by Craxi to the fictional character of a half crazy son of an ex-party member. This part of the plot, with the crazy guy filming Craxi's narration of his memory is irritating because one doesn't get a coherent story.

One must be an expert of Italian history in the late 80s/early 90s to understand what happened, otherwise it's next to impossible to follow (even for me, and I am Italian).

Even more irritating are the vapid dialogues of Craxi and the annoying grandchild, the dragged scenes on the beach and around Hammamet, all skimming the surface and never getting to the point - but what was supposed to be the point? The only positive note is main character, the unnamed President (aka Craxi) played with astonishing resemblance to the real person by a very chameleonic actor who disappears in the part. The rest is diluted fluff.