Film d'amore e d'anarchia, ovvero 'stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza...'

The well-regarded director Wertmuller made this movie which is a slow study into how brutality and violence can be saved my love in my opinion. It is very operatic which is how she chose to attack it. The direction, I can say is flawless but the movie feels incomplete. First, I am more the director who uses visual images rather than hammy stagey dialogue to tell their stories. Carnini is the only actor who does not use a pantomime, overexagerrated style in the movie until the very end, while everybody else does. It softens the impact of the movie as it is the quieter moments that carry real weight. The style of direction is very narchiac with wonderful wide shots and good editing creating an effigy of exuberance over the picture. Most of the picture set in an italian bordello where the fascists of italy stay is a place for both love between carnini and pesilamo. Images are beautiful, and certain individual scenes work while others don't. We are left with a great understanding of what love must feel like but the brutality of man is never explained. It esssentially sets up the theory that all fascists are naturally evil. The ending tells us it is the stoty of one man while the movie sets it up as the story of every man. This the best explanation I can give without speaking too much about its plot. Wertmuller was much better in Swept away and seven beauties. But for an introduction to Wertmuller, and arty Italian cinema of the sixties and seventies which dealt very operaticly with evils of fascism.

Rather than contend for film with the longest title, "Film of Love and Anarchy (or At Ten o'clock This Morning in Via dei Fiori in the Infamous House of Prostitution)" is better known by the more manageable "Love and Anarchy". This 1973 Lina Wertmüller thriller is a hard first watch because there is no suspense to grab the viewer and hook them into the story. I was only able to handle about 30 minutes at a time, not because it was unpleasant but because I was too uninvolved in the story to ignore distractions and interruptions. But while it withholds most of its appeal from the initial viewing, it yields something new each time it is viewed.

"Love and Anarchy" is more an expressionistic opera than a realistic thriller. Imagine "Cabaret" starring Charlie Chaplin's "Little Tramp" and you will have a good idea of its style.

It's main theme sneaks up and surprises you. U.S. viewers, dimly aware of the great depression and World War Two, suffer a complete cultural disconnect regarding the continuing legacy of fascism in Italy and Germany. Meaning that anti-fascist political messages are embedded in almost all post-war Italian cinema. But Wertmüller's "Love and Anarchy" has the broader theme of anti-extremism, taking shots at those who make major sacrifices out of perverted idealism and a lack historical perspective.

The film begins with its main character Tonino (Giancarlo Giannini) at a turning point in his life, the execution of an older relative for political subversion. After viewing the body on display in what would otherwise by an idyllic rural setting, Torino is inspired to take over what he perceives as his relative's mission, the assassination of Benito Mussolini.

Tonino goes to Rome and links up with his anarchist contact, a highly sought after call girl named Salomè (another Wertmuller regular Mariangela Melato), her brothel is popular with the Fascists and Mussolini's head of security, an arrogant blow-hard named Spatoletti (Eros Pagni), is especially fond of Salomè.

Tonino and young call girl Tripolina (Lina Polito) soon fall in love which serves to greatly complicate his mission.

I watched the widescreen version of the film on the Fox Lorber DVD, and contrary to several other comments I found no problems with the film transfer. My guess is that these refer to the variation in color tone as the film cuts between characters, but this is a deliberate effect by Wertmüller's. She lights each face differently to convey the character's motivation. The uncomplicated Torino is given natural lighting, the political Salomè is tinted red, and the disillusioned Tripolina is in shadow. These combine with bold colors, a surreal score, and acute camera angles that exaggerate elements and play with scale in many of the frames. The everyday scenes in the brothel are especially good, combining the audacious with the darkly comic. The best is a carnival-like montage to music showcasing the start of a busy day of business for the prostitutes and their eager customers.

In almost any other film Pagni would steal the whole thing with his overplayed performance but Melato matches him line for line. This contrasts nicely with the more subtle and nuanced performances of Giannini and Polito. Polito is very effective when Wertmüller makes use of her eyes in several close-ups.

There is much overwrought melodrama as Wertmüller uses a farcical tone to illustrate that the Fascists and their opposition are linked by a common hypocrisy and a shared perversion of idealism. Ironically the film is at its best during its quiet scenes such as Tornio and Tripolina's stroll through the plazas of the city.

This is an important film with an original message, fine performances from the entire ensemble, and really slick film-making techniques.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Excellent movie. Fast-paced, witty, earthy, entertaining dialog that tells a compelling story. That coupled with excellent acting, great continuity, and an unconventional setting makes this movie a special entertainment event. The movie also dramatizes the life of those on the margins of society and takes the audience on an emotional ride, generously spiced with conflict, arguments, squabbles, reconciliations and above all comradeship and friendship as the story takes a group of otherwise unsavory characters and elevates them to the level of real, but unsung, heroes who, hiding behind their masks of moodiness and bravado, have consciousness and really do care and are willing to act on it. Can a foulmouthed prostitute and a half-deranged peasant be heroes? Is a brothel a legitimate setting for hatching political conspiracies? Are those who society usually despises capable of heroism? This movie is about love and heroism and shows that even the most downtrodden are capable of great acts of personal selflessness. Great movie.

To live like a dog or to die like a dog? It is an elemental question hovering above the head of a disaffected but weak-minded farmer Tunin (Giannini), after his anarchist friend being murdered by fascist police, he decisively joins the anarchist camp, and takes up his dead friend's cause, to kill Benito Mussolini. He arrives in Rome, and contacts his comrade Salomè (Melato), a premier prostitute in a brothel, who will assist to carry out his assassin plan. During a location scout with the unsuspecting Spatoletti (Pagni), the head of Mussolini's police division, Tunin falls for a young working girl Tripolina (Polito), will the mutually spontaneous romance spoil Tunin's determination of his action? Or, does it matter?

LOVE AND ANARCHY is Wertmüller's seventh feature, which debuted in Cannes in competition and won Giannini BEST ACTOR award. It is the second teamwork for Wertmüller, Giannini and Mariangela Melato, after THE SEDUCTION OF MIMI (1972), and they would try a third time in SWEPT AWAY (1974) one year later.

Freckle-faced, disheveled, Tunin is an honest but slow-witted countryside man, hasn't been to seaside before, he is not even a radical anarchist, but avenging the death of his friend, is the only thing he knows that can prove his worth, whether or not it is a suicidal mission. Fear is something he has to battle everyday, Giannini registers a viscerally soul-pulverising performance as Tunin, downplays his masculine charm and portrays him as a sympathetic, the salt of the earth sort, a cog in the machine, but radiates with those attributes what make human human. Mariangela Melato's Salomé, a spitfire driven by her own scores against the repressing government, is also superbly thrilling to behold, her piercing look, gravelly voice, worldly-wise flamboyance, and her unabashed camaraderie and affection towards Tunin, leaves a searing impact afterwards. A then 19-year-old Polito, a debutante in her full-fledged flapper outfit, thrusts herself into a more rational attempt to save her lover, only to no avail.

Wertmüller's resplendent depiction of the Italian brothel is certainly inspired by aesthetics of Fellini school, and her taste for music is admirably impeccable as well, whether it is classical pieces like Debussy's CLAIRE DE LUNE, or the catchy French ditty LA PETITE TONKINOISE by Vincent Scotto, together with Nino Rota's sentimentally melodious score, emotionality and vivacity are eternally among the national spirits running in the Mediterranean blood of Italian people, not even the ominous subject matter and demoralising situation can change its tonality.

Less heralded than Wermüller and Giannini's most acclaimed collaboration SEVEN BEAUTIES (1975), which earned both Oscar nominations (yes, Wermüller is the first woman who has even been nominated for BEST DIRECTOR), LOVE AND ANARCHY is no less a fine-crafted equivalent which speaks loud about its filmmakers' political slant and an outstanding melodrama can transfix its audience without compromising its thematic tragic.

Directed by Lina Wertmüller in 1973, "Love & Anarchy" is an indisputable classic. Universally identifiable and immediately entertaining, Wertmüller carries her audience into the mind and times of Turin, a peasant in 1930s Italy. When one of his close friends and idols is killed by fascists, Turin becomes obsessed with anarchist ideals he hardly understands, and sets off to exact an awful vendetta--the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The plan gets off-track when Turin falls in love with Tripolina, a prostitute in the bordello where he lives in the days leading up to the assassination attempt. We soon learn that Tripolina returns his love, and the tragic stage is set. Knowing full well that the assassination attempt, successful or not, will surely mean his death, Turin is suddenly gripped by fear. When all he had at stake was a quiet life on the farm, he was glad to give it up for a chance at changing the quality of life for his peasant countrymen. But now, having tasted the happiness love can afford, can Turin really carry through with this suicidal act? Can he truly give up his life for a belief he once thought was worth dying?

"Love & Anarchy" is a brilliant study of turmoil and human testing in the face of insurmountable odds. It begs the question--is it better to bow and live, or stand up and die? How much can a people be crushed before someone makes a sacrifice for the betterment of society? Whose responsibility is it? And on a grander scale, is it better to live happily, contented by love or family, and leave the world untouched, or to attempt real change by sacrificing everything in exchange for it? "Love & Anarchy" poses all these questions, but it offers no easy answers.

Wertmüller's favorite actor, Giancarlo Giannini, plays the peasant boy, Turin, with beautiful humility. He wordlessly portrays infinite subtleties of emotion with body language and facial expression alone. Giannini has the face of a silent movie actor, and in fact was touted as a new Chaplin in the 1970s. Playing opposite him as the prostitute Salome is Mariangela Melato, who viewers may recognize from Wertmüller's "Swept Away." She, too, delivers a wonderful performance. The style and pacing of the film are excellent. Cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno captures Rome in a gorgeous, yet unobtrusive manner.

In "Love & Anarchy," Wertmüller doesn't pull any punches. As par usual, she lets the politics of her movie decide the fate of its characters, and tragedy ensues. One must admire her for making an extraordinarily brave and beautiful film. She exhibits how powerful and effective a tragic story can truly be in exploring the more complex questions of life.