Film Review: Good Morning, Night

Numerous filmmakers have attempted to dramatize the terrorist activity that gripped Italy in the 1970s, but few have done so with the unsettling power of Marco Bellocchio's "Good Morning, Night." This brooding drama intelligently explores the nature of imprisonment, the failure of radical ideology and the possibility for diversity of intention and individual action even within extremist groups.

Numerous filmmakers have attempted to dramatize the terrorist activity that gripped Italy in the 1970s, but few have done so with the unsettling power of Marco Bellocchio‘s “Good Morning, Night.” Recounting the kidnapping and eventual murder of Italian prime minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigade activists in 1978, this brooding drama intelligently explores the nature of imprisonment, the failure of radical ideology and the possibility for diversity of intention and individual action even within extremist groups. Certain to be an explosive release in Italy, film may struggle to penetrate beyond European markets but should benefit from festival attention, starting in Venice and Toronto.

Since abandoning the ponderous psychoanalytical approach of his films of the 1980s and early ’90s, Bellocchio has regained some of the severity and challenging political nature that thrust him onto the map in the mid-’60s, starting with “Fists in the Pocket.” His last two features, “The Religion Hour” and “Good Morning, Night,” have been incisive, caustic and arrestingly solemn works, respectively taking on church and state, the two most formidable Italian institutions.

Bellocchio also has developed into an impeccably skilled technical craftsman. He displays a masterful ability to control and manipulate not only performance but images, visual style, light, sound and music in the service of his themes. The first half-hour or so of his new film — detailing the setting up of a base, the sequestering of Moro and the strain for the kidnappers to create and maintain a facade of everyday life — shows a filmmaker at the top of his form, almost 40 years into his career.

Opening shows what appears to be a young married couple, Chiara (Maya Sansa) and Ernesto (the director’s son, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) being shown a large Rome apartment by a realtor. While Chiara looks over the courtyard garden, Ernesto discreetly takes measurements of a small room in the back. Hidden behind a wall of bookshelves, the room becomes a cell where Moro (Robert Herlitzka) is imprisoned for 55 days prior to his assassination.

The band of four brigatisti live in a jittery state of claustrophobic tension, with little evidence of contact to other links within the organization. They suspiciously eye neighbors and anxiously follow the constant stream of news reports about Moro while their leader Mariano (Luigi Lo Cascio) interviews the politician, initially for information and later for his mediation via letters in negotiating his release.

The events are seen mainly through the eyes of Chiara in a haze of reality and ghostly dreams, reflecting on parallels in political history and on her late father’s death fighting Fascists with the WWII partisans. She lives a schizophrenic existence, holding down a government job for cover during the day with a colleague (Paolo Briguglia), who appears to see beneath her composed exterior. The latter writes a screenplay — titled “Good Morning, Night,” after an Emily Dickinson poem — which outlines a remarkably similar terrorist-kidnapping. However, this element seems an unsatisfying red herring.

The idea that the four terrorists are as much prisoners as Moro is beautifully conveyed, and their carrying out of everyday household tasks like cooking, ironing and washing while holding captive the most powerful man in the country gives the drama an interesting edge. But there’s something underexplored in the dialogue and interaction that contributes to a mid-section lag. This is perhaps partly because the most determined and authoritative of the group, Mariano, never seems more than a one-dimensionally rigid ideologue.

The drama is far more successful in its abstract, intimate approach to the events, conveying Chiara’s growing suspicion of the other group members and her skepticism about Mariano’s means of achieving revolution. Though they have only a line or two of dialogue with each other, and not a single scene face-to-face, the central relationship becomes that between Chiara and Moro as the girl continually is drawn back to the secret doorway to observe the captive through a peephole. This unseen observation becomes a haunting visual motif throughout the film.

Bellocchio drew inspiration for his screenplay from Moro’s writings and often extremely moving letters to family as well as from the book “The Prisoner,” co-written by former Red Brigade member Anna Laura Braghetti — clearly the basis for Chiara — with Paola Tavella.

While the political background may be a little obscure for non-Italians, the key points emerge that Moro became a scapegoat; his Christian Democrat party and the Vatican basically refused to negotiate with the Red Brigade for his release. Archive news footage of the stony faces of Italian political heavyweights at Moro’s funeral underscores this point with bitter irony. Use of news clips and trash TV throughout is extremely effective in sketching the Italy of that time.

Cast generally is strong but it’s the intense, questioning face and expressive, frightened eyes of Sansa and the dignity and calm resignation of Herlitzka that give the film its intensity. Moro’s gentle humanity and patient, almost nurturing, approach in dealing with Mariano are painfully moving as he questions and challenges the younger man’s political beliefs.

Teaming again with d.p. Pasquale Mari, who shot “The Religion Hour,” Bellocchio creates a brooding chiaroscuro visual canvas of heavy shadow, evoking the look of the ’70s less with retro visuals than with somber color and atmosphere. Production designer Marco Dentici has done an impressive job with the apartment’s darkened spaces, caged by the barred windows to the courtyard. Sound design is densely complex, from the muffled echo of footsteps to disquieting bursts of choral music, classical tunes and, at one or two points, wailing Pink Floyd period tracks employed to considerable dramatic effect.