The film begins with a wedding and finishes with too. A young candid priest, Don Giulio, returns home and finds bad changes. His new church is empty. The last priest is married and has a son. His father has an affair with a young woman (he goes to this woman to talk to her but gets upset and says good bye gruffly. That's the Moretti's style, I mean a very serious character in a very tense situation. The situation becomes funny because his reactions are unexpected, sudden and violent) His sister wants to have an abortion. His old friends, from the day he was a revolutionary, are misfits. An ex-commie is now catholic and wants to become a priest and finally get married. Don Giulio is on the brink of depression and resignation because he realizes that the new world is only based on material and sexual needs. He is an obsolete and useless man like a relic from the past. In my opinion, the scene that sums up his future behaviour is when he is playing football with children and suddenly falls down like a dead man which symbolizes the priest's distress. There is a leitmotiv music with a nostalgic mood played in a various ways all along the film. The music is very important because it explains Moretti's feelings, for instance : he plays with sound effects (the musical fade) in order to emphasize the drama itself; when his sister deals with his father, Don Giulio turns the radio up outloud : ironic and dramatic at once. Nanni Moretti also uses singing as tongue-in-cheek effects. He deals with serious and sad matters in a bittersweet way. Instead of the usual Michele Apicella character, Moretti now plays priest Don Giulio (like Socrates) who still enjoys his cakes, his ball, his mother and himself. Moretti treats the theme of the uncomprising individual through the courage and the stubbornness of his desperate priest who, for example, undergoes three times the violent attacks of men that don't want to park their car properly. The best scene is when the priest tries to save a friend from hoodlums and recite Dante. Nanni Moretti shows us a wide array of fantastic characters, for instance : the misanthropic man who wants to erase his past. "La messa è finita" is a subtle pamphlet and an analysis of today's Italy cleverly directed. Iconic actor Nanni Moretti remains the best contemporary European director.
