He created his films in a climate in which God was still alive, Marx was not forgotten and Lenin was not despised. Such a climate was an ideal starting point for the talented generation of cineastes such as Damiani, Pontecorvo and Petri himself, who was a representative of the most radical current of Italian political films



In a dogmatic and utterly ideological country such as Italy, where there is a fierce fight against the general “Berlusconization” of the media, characterized by an obscene soap opera about the Iranian martyrs Jessica and Samantha, it is hard to imagine that a political film would have a powerful therapeutic effect. Just like quality Italian political satire, quality Italian political films always come from the left, with just a few rare exceptions. If the 1960s and 1970s were its golden age and the Italian political right found its spokesman in the anarchist Dino Risi, the ultimate cynic and great individualist, then the political left revealed its “therapist” in Elio Petri. Nonetheless, his social engagement was often overshadowed by contemporaries like Rosi, Bertolucci, Damiani and Pontecorvo. The status of this author has not changed even today; the intelligent documentary by Federico Bacci and Stefano Leone Elio Petri: Appunti su un autore proved that Italian film history should not be ashamed of its reactionary authors who were courageous enough to reveal and denounce Italian political nightmares. Nevertheless, this film was not part of the official program of this year’s Mostra, but was shown in the alternative program 'Cinema degli autori', which is a sort of an off version of the Venice film festival such as the Cannes program Quinzaine.


Petri created his films in a climate in which God was still alive, Marx was not forgotten and Lenin was not despised. Such a climate was an ideal starting point for the talented generation of cineastes such as Damiani, Pontecorvo and Petri himself, who was a representative of the most radical current of Italian political film famous by the expression 'cinema di denuncia' (denouncing film'). Some film critics, such as Pierre Bilard, went so far as to accuse these films of encouraging terrorism. At the same time, the rebellious Petri intelligently perfected Welles’s saying that “talking about Evil is much more challenging than talking about Good”. Just like Welles’s bad guys such as Kane, Quinlan and Arkadin were much more intriguing than the heroes of the good America from Capra’s films. Petri’s fascistic police chiefs, mafia members and repulsive Demo-Christian distinguished people and similar bad guys were much stronger and much better profiled than the good Italians from De Sica’s neo-realist films.


However much Petri’s duel with the pathological interweaving of the dark objects of desire and political power was utterly personal, the audience was always on his side. For that, he can also thank his favorite actor, Gian Maria Volonte’s rebellious look in some moments Petri’s fascination with Reich’s psychoanalysis and Bosch’s canvases was so strong, mostly thanks to Luigi Kuveiller’s colorist games that the author’s work seems like a grotesque combination of frantic kitsch, anti naturalism and strong expressiveness.


Therefore, it is very hard to find an adequate comparison for Petri in the contemporary Italian “denouncing” film. Certainly there are several authors who continue his tradition, such as Giordana (La meglio gioventu), Benvenuti (Segreti di Stato) and Andrea Manni (Il fuggiasco). Some of his contemporaries who shared his political activist viewpoints are still active, such as the indestructible Bellocchio (Bongiorno, notte). However, all those authors remain overshadowed by Petri’s best work. His films Todo modo, I giorni contati, Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion), La classe operaia va in paradiso (The Working Class Goes to Heaven) and A ciascuno il suo (We Still Kill the Old Way) are more current these days than ever before. Because Petri denounced his time in a way that was far ahead of its time.
(Dragan Rubeša)