31/10/2011

Following the loan shark banks of A Better Life [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cédric Kahn
film profile] and in anticipation of the film about the Lehman Brothers’ crash Too Big To Fail, the Rome Film Festival revisits the subject of economic crisis and the excessive power of lending institutions with L'industriale [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by veteran filmmaker Giuliano Montaldo (Sacco e Vanzetti), screened yesterday out-of-competition. Set in a grey and cold Turin, taken to the extreme by Arnaldo Cantinari’s livid photography, the film depicts Nicola (Pierfrancesco Favino), a forty-year-old entrepreneur strangled by debt and by the banks, who is however proud and tenacious, and decides to resolve his problems by any means, with the help of his unscrupulous lawyer. (Francesco Scianna).

It is against this background – the screenplay is written by the Genoa-born director together with Andrea Purgatori – that the main character’s private affair plays out, with his wife Laura (CarolinaCrescentini) becoming ever more distant. Nicola begins to suspect that she is having an affair and starts following her in secret, leading him to discover her friendship with a Romanian garage owner (Eduard Gabia), the only one capable of making her smile again. And when things seem to be back to normal (the company, the marriage, social standing), Nicola will already have brought out the worst in himself and consequences will soon follow.

The film is set in a city paralised by crisis, with very little traffic, deserted factories and a distant sound of protest in the background. "A story like many others about how the economic crisis can destroy an individual, which captures a historical moment'', says Montaldo, eighty-years-old, who strikes up with the song 'Non ho l'età' (I’m not of the right age) every time he is asked why the film is not in competition. "These are terrifying times. We just have to take a tour of the North to see how many empty warehouses there are". L'industriale, produced by Angelo Barbagallo’s Bibi with Rai Cinema, will be distributed in Italian cinemas by 01 ''at the beginning of 2012, but I am convinced – adds the director – that it won’t lose its topicality, unfortunately''.

(Translated from Italian)