ARTE E CULTURA
Is the golden age over for Italian cinema?
Italy is well known for its thriving cinema scene. It has produced many a great director including the likes of Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci and more recently Paolo Sorrentino and Luca Guadagino – and that is to name just a few of them. The golden age of Italian cinema is often considered to be the 1940s and 50s, but that doesn’t stop them from producing more great films year on year. Let’s take a look at a couple that were featured at Cannes Film Festival this year, Garrone’s Dogman and the restored version of the 1948 classic by De Sica, Ladri di biciclette.
Gentle Marcello, played by Marcello
Fonte, owns a dog grooming
business in a bleak seaside town on
the outskirts of Naples.
Marcello leads a simple life. He enjoys his job and he does it well. He supplements his earnings with a little cocaine dealing on the side, the proceeds of which go to doting on his daughter, Alida. He is well liked by the people of the town.
While Marcello successfully tames and pampers even the most brutish of the town’s canines with gentle diligence and care, there is one animal that he cannot control: Simone, a beast of a man who enjoys terrorising the town, with an insatiable taste for violence and cocaine. Inevitably, loyal lapdog Marcello gets mixed up in the criminal world run by Simone.
Based on a true story, it’s a tale of toxic friendship, loyalty and masculinity. Garrone doesn’t leave out any of the gnarly bits and it’s certainly not for the faint hearted, but there are brief moments of immense tenderness in a fantastic performance by Fonte – who won best actor at Cannes for the role – that make it a must see for those who can stomach the violence.
DOGMAN
Matteo Garrone (2018)
IMAGE SOURCE THE GUARDIAN