Il caso Mattei

THE MATTEI AFFAIR is the fascinating story of Enrico Mattei, a man who helped change Italy's destiny "from a land of song and dance to an industrial nation," as he himself put it. By promoting methane gas as one of the country's greatest natural resources, he was able to bring Italy into the world market and make himself both powerful and hated. He became head of ENI, a state body formed for the development of oil resources. He was socialist by conviction, led a very modest private life, and had conflicts with powerful American oil capitalists. There is a memorable scene in the film in which in a meeting with these oil moguls, he is insultingly treated as a peon. His 1962 death in a private plane crash outside of Milan was believed to have been an assassination, and his death remains shrouded in mystery. This is not a documentary. It is a thought-provoking and intriguing drama about a great man, brilliantly portrayed by the great Italian actor Gian Maria Volonte' and made by the great Italian director Francesco Rosi.

It must be made clear that "Il Caso Mattei" is a different Italian film.This film is not a biographical analysis of a powerful man who mattered a lot to politicians in Italy.It has been directed by Francesco Rosi,a great Italian film director whose films always made a point to expose what was going wrong with Italy.This is the reason why he can be called the conscience keeper of Italy.Italian actor Gian Maria Volonté shines in one of his life's most outstanding roles as Enrico Mattei,an oil magnate who was one of Italy's most powerful men.Francesco Rosi has made his film in almost a subtle documentary manner but the film has nothing to do with documentary cinema.Il Caso Mattei is considered a supreme example of political cinema genre.It is one of those rare films which succeed in making their point noted without being neither controversial nor brash.This is all due to Francesco Rosi's cool and calm direction.A film to watch if you want to explore cinematographic oeuvre of Francesco Rosi,one of Italian cinema's greatest directors.

Back then I am sure most of the praise Il caso Mattei got was reared on its courageous intent at solving a case that had been officially buried. The narrative is straightforward, going back in time with short vignettes of the aftermath of the 'accident'. It is powerful in a very efficient way, only showcasing the bits of info you need, with some real bits of emotion so you do not get too much time to dislike a chauvinist megalomaniac.

The point is that this storytelling is very artificial, it is kind of a roller-coaster: not very comfortable but you came here for the thrill, not the smooth transitions. Rossi mastered this kind of pseudo-documentarian genre. It worked for a while, about ten years just before conspiracy movies took over with a much more comprehensive approach, much more compelling storytelling skills.

Rossi sticks with his dream of an investigative documentary about Enrico Mattei. If his movie were a real documentary it would be awesome, beyond words. Alas it is all scripted. Gian-Maria Volontè is great but it is a one-man-show, in the end it feels as if we are cheated. Even the kidnapping of Mauro de Mauro sounds like something unreal (because, in Rossi's movie-making fashion, it is a raw fact nonchalantly dropped in here at the right moment in the timeline).

I can't help but think it would have been more interesting to tell the story from the point of view of this journalist. Less original, for sure. Basically this was the part played by Gian-Maria Volontè himself in A ciascuno il suo. But much more honest than aiming to dutifully depict, at full speed, the whole case rather than concentrating on the converging antagonisms in the months leading to the plane crash.

Interesting feature film that combines two, not one, real life mysteries. The main tale is about emergence of Enrico Mattei and his growing clout in Italy and the world, after propagating the underground methane reserves in Italy to alleviate poverty in Italy, post-Word War II. Though Mattei was a member of ths Christian Democrats Party during the war he was appointed after the war to dismantle AGIP, a petroleum agency set up by the Fascists. He found scientific studies already conducted but shelved about methane reserves and subsequently converted AGIP which he was supposed to dismantle into a major state-owned powerful petroleum company called ANI. Rosi's film presents both the negative and the positive sides of Mattei, who was by all accounts killed in a plane crash in 1962, possibly with a bomb placed on board the aircraft.

The secondary tale (also real) is of Rosi employing an investigative journalist, Mauro de Mauro, to figure out the last days of Mattei. Mauro, too, is killed before he can provide all the details of his investigation to filmmaker Rosi for making this film. Two separate but possibly linked killings. The viewer is left to guess the killers. The second tale lifts up the quality of the film even further than the first. Rosi is admirable for presenting all views of both the killings.

A film that won a deserving Golden Palm at Cannes Festival. The real heroes of the film are Mauro, the journalist who was killed while helping Rosi, the scriptwriters. Tonino Guerra, Rosi and Tito di Stefano.