Matti da slegare

Truncated from a 200-minute TV film entitled "Nessuno O Tutti" (No One or Everyone) "Fit to Be Untied" is a 1975 documentary made by an Italian filmmakers' collective, attacking the system of mental hospitals in Italy. Integrating mental patients into the community at large is the pic's alternative, awkwardly linked by the activist helmers to various Communist and "workers unite" sentiments expressed by the interviewees on camera.

Format is talking heads interviews. With former patients and their community sponsors presenting a somewhat monolithic point-of-view. Film's strength lies in the fascinating nature of what these folks have to say, though in the main the deck has been loaded by selectively focusing on articulate, appealing people (with the implication that there are no seriously ill mental cases around requiring isolation and treatment).

First hour of the docu centers on three young men: Paolo, a cute husky-voiced hell-raiser; Angelo, a militant Communist, and a retarded kid Marco, who clearly are better off on the outside than in hospitals. Similarly, a shop foreman at a factory shows us several happy workers who happen to be retarded nor mongoloid, but are leading effective lives as part of the group. He even argues that patients in psychiatric hospitals should unionize to improve their living conditions.

A target of the filmmakers is Catholic Church-run hospitals, with footage included of their inability to film inside such institutions or obtain interviews. Unlike Frederick Wiseman's pioneer work in the genre, the 1966 "Titicut Follies", footage does not present the conditions or day-to-day life inside hospitals, and thus lacks the force of an exposé. Lensing is haphazard, with 35mm blowup grainy and cropping off foreheads.

My review was written in September 1981 after a New York Film Festival screening.