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saavedra77Well, I've now seen my annual average of one SIFF film per festival: This year's offering was "Romanzo Criminale," or "Crime Novel," which traces the development of a group of friends from juvenile delinquents to major players in the Italian underworld of the 1970s and 1980s.
To paraphrase Stray Bullets creator David Lapham regarding that book's cast of antiheroes, the gangmembers we follow in "Crime Novel"'s are "innocently" nihilistic: "Lebanese," "Ice," "Dandy," et al (gangsters gotta have iconic handles, after all ...) are bursting with charisma, ambition, drive, and street smarts, but as The Sopranos theme song goes, their papas never told them 'bout right and wrong. "Lebanese" motivates his crew by invoking their shared resentment of having to say "sí, signore" ("yes, sir") to swells, and that seems to sum up their attitude toward society. Few of them seem interested in learning much beyond how they can score bigger without getting caught, next time. They lack any sense of obligation to anyone beyond family and peers--and their life choices tend to place even those connections in doubt.
But "Lebanese" and his gang aren't the only users in "Crime Novel": A grandfatherly Sicilian mafioso also figures prominently, although one imagines that his background isn't altogether different from theirs--he's just learned the utility of advanced social skills. A more striking instance of elite corruption comes in the form of a nondescript little man in a business suit who claims to be acting on behalf of the Italian government, and who works at a place called "The Institute for Social Research." Never named, this little fellow turns out to be a major dealmaker with the power to make indictments and people disappear, as the need arises. Inevitably, there are invocations of the Caesars, and times when the whole world worked like a mafia family.
So, has anybody's papa told them 'bout right and wrong, in director Michele Placido's Italy ...?
Well, as you might expect from a sort of noir/gangster pic, there is this One Good Cop. But, as is generally the case with One Good Cop storylines, he's also got Woman Problems. Specifically, he and a certain gangmember are shagging the same woman. You can see how this might both motivate and complicate his Crusade for Justice.
All of this also ties in somehow with Red Brigades' terrorism, the assassination of Aldo Moro, and some supposed wider, Cold-War era conspiracy. I'm afraid that I don't know Italian history during this period well enough to judge how reasonable any of that is: the Red Brigades did indeed launch a wave of terrorism starting in the 1970s, which included Moro's kidnapping and assassination, but that's about as much as I know about the time and place.
Setting aside the vagaries of history and conspiracy theory, I did find the film entertaining---if not in the same flashy way as Goodfellas or Layer Cake; its style is much grittier than either of those films--which, given the subject matter, seems perfectly appropriate.
At the same time, I came away finding the story a bit unedifying: I mean, I'm pretty much down with the ideas that unscrupulous people often feel perfectly "innocent" when screwing other people over and that "doing the right thing" doesn't necessarily flow from doing what comes naturally.
Of course, some unconscious compulsion then prompts me to put Springsteen's "The River" in the CD player, "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart" comes on, and, well, yes, I get it.
To paraphrase Stray Bullets creator David Lapham regarding that book's cast of antiheroes, the gangmembers we follow in "Crime Novel"'s are "innocently" nihilistic: "Lebanese," "Ice," "Dandy," et al (gangsters gotta have iconic handles, after all ...) are bursting with charisma, ambition, drive, and street smarts, but as The Sopranos theme song goes, their papas never told them 'bout right and wrong. "Lebanese" motivates his crew by invoking their shared resentment of having to say "sí, signore" ("yes, sir") to swells, and that seems to sum up their attitude toward society. Few of them seem interested in learning much beyond how they can score bigger without getting caught, next time. They lack any sense of obligation to anyone beyond family and peers--and their life choices tend to place even those connections in doubt.
But "Lebanese" and his gang aren't the only users in "Crime Novel": A grandfatherly Sicilian mafioso also figures prominently, although one imagines that his background isn't altogether different from theirs--he's just learned the utility of advanced social skills. A more striking instance of elite corruption comes in the form of a nondescript little man in a business suit who claims to be acting on behalf of the Italian government, and who works at a place called "The Institute for Social Research." Never named, this little fellow turns out to be a major dealmaker with the power to make indictments and people disappear, as the need arises. Inevitably, there are invocations of the Caesars, and times when the whole world worked like a mafia family.
So, has anybody's papa told them 'bout right and wrong, in director Michele Placido's Italy ...?
Well, as you might expect from a sort of noir/gangster pic, there is this One Good Cop. But, as is generally the case with One Good Cop storylines, he's also got Woman Problems. Specifically, he and a certain gangmember are shagging the same woman. You can see how this might both motivate and complicate his Crusade for Justice.
All of this also ties in somehow with Red Brigades' terrorism, the assassination of Aldo Moro, and some supposed wider, Cold-War era conspiracy. I'm afraid that I don't know Italian history during this period well enough to judge how reasonable any of that is: the Red Brigades did indeed launch a wave of terrorism starting in the 1970s, which included Moro's kidnapping and assassination, but that's about as much as I know about the time and place.
Setting aside the vagaries of history and conspiracy theory, I did find the film entertaining---if not in the same flashy way as Goodfellas or Layer Cake; its style is much grittier than either of those films--which, given the subject matter, seems perfectly appropriate.
At the same time, I came away finding the story a bit unedifying: I mean, I'm pretty much down with the ideas that unscrupulous people often feel perfectly "innocent" when screwing other people over and that "doing the right thing" doesn't necessarily flow from doing what comes naturally.
Of course, some unconscious compulsion then prompts me to put Springsteen's "The River" in the CD player, "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart" comes on, and, well, yes, I get it.
