Last night, I watched Nani Moretti's Cannes 2006 entry The Caiman (Il Caimano). In Cannes for the seventh time, Moretti is a superstar not just in Italy, but throughout Europe. His brand of personal, humour-filled meditations on politics, family, and relationships is unique and always heart-warming. I'd loved his previous comedies Caro Diario and Aprile, and he had moved me to tears with his melodramatic The Son's Room (La Stanza del Figlio), not just as a gifted filmmaker but as a terrific lead actor as well.
In The Caiman, Moretti the actor takes on a smaller (but crucial) role: he is one of three performers playing Silvio Berlusconi in the film (within-a-film) Corman-esque producer Paolo Bonomo is attempting to make. Silvio Orlando is brilliant as the down-on-his-luck producer attempting to revive his career and save his marriage at the same time.
The satirical script on the media magnate turned ruthless politician, which an inexperienced young woman hands him at a film festival, is Bonomo's last chance to prove himself. His wife is leaving him, his company's in debt, and it's been a while since he was last invited to an industry party.
Entitled The Caiman, this new film — despite being named after a crocodile — is a far cry from the gory B-movies which originally made him famous. Raising funding for the satirical biopic is proving difficult indeed. As with his marriage, it seems everything's already been said, and no one feels like taking on the mighty Berlusconi as a subject.
Following the buzz preceding Moretti's film, audiences were prepared for a political film about Berlusconi. After all, it had been released in Italy in the midst of the recent elections, which finally ousted the corrupt right-wing politician. Though there are plenty of subtle political jabs at Berlusconi, the producer's failed film project is really more of a metaphor for his attempt to face reality and save his marriage. At the core of Moretti's film lies the beautiful, bittersweet story of a middle-aged man's despair and confusion, faced with situations in the film industry, in his relationship, and in his country, which he simply fails to understand, let alone come to terms with.
The Caiman suffers from an uneven tone and, buckling under the weight of its ambition, eventually fails to achieve a coherent form. The political satire of the film-within-a-film works well, and the personal crisis of the husband and father is portrayed with great finesse, but the two don't mesh easily. What remains are some fantastic scenes where Moretti's generous characters interact with a great deal of humanity, portrayed as they are by some tremendously gifted actors.
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