Gianni Amelio brings to the screen the story of Aldo Braibanti, an intellectual who at the end of the 1960s was convicted of plagiarizing Ettore, a young man who frequented the Tower, Braibanti's cultural centre. The intellectual from Piacenza is played well by Luigi Lo Cascio, but applause certainly goes to the young Leonardo Maltese who plays Ettore. The usually versatile Elio Germano takes on the role of Ennio Flaiano, the journalist of the Unità, a Communist newspaper, who immediately understands the delicacy of this process. The issues relating to civil rights begin to arise, but the country's culture is still anchored to the Catholic tradition, and Fascist heritage, which does not give any space to homosexuality. It is a film of shocking brutality, profound ignorance and Catholic bigotry. Anyone who thinks that things have changed consistently in Italy since then is grossly mistaken. It is sufficient to live in any of the small Italian provincial towns to still feel the same air of profound obscurantism and Catholic suffocation.
Review of Lord of the Ants
