The new Paolo Sorrentino film
'Loro', the first of a two-film series depicting the life of
former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, hits Italian theatres
on Thursday with a 500-screen release by Universal, sources said
Tuesday.
The second of the two films is set to debut in Italian
cinemas on May 10, just after the start of the Cannes Film
Festival, with no word yet on whether the film will be part of
the official selection line-up there, although it is one of the
most keenly awaited films this spring.
In the film, "loro", which is Italian for "them", stands for
all the well-known Berlusconi tropes: beauty pageants, cocaine,
women in various states of undress, ambitious girls willing to
do anything to get ahead, former government ministers wheeling
and dealing, all of which and all of whom swirl around the man
at the centre of power, played in the film by a masterly Toni
Servillo.
The film, set around 2008, portrays the image of a slovenly
Italy "at the end of an empire", sources said after a preview
screening.
In a particularly symbolic scene, a sheep is shown in front
of a TV watching quiz shows and advertising messages, enchanted,
until the giant TV suddenly turns off and the sheep falls to the
ground.
This first volume is almost entirely dedicated to a brilliant
performance by Riccardo Scamarcio, in the role of one Sergio
Morra, who could be a stand-in for real-life Berlusconi
escort-pimp Gianpaolo Tarantini.
In Sorrentino's director's notes, he pointed out that
Berlusconi is "much more" than just one thing, and quoted
Hemingway's "Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except
bullfighters".
"Paraphrasing, perhaps the image that most epitomises Silvio
Berlusconi that one can have is this: he's a bullfighter", said
Sorrentino.
The Naples-born director, 47, is perhaps best-known for the
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), which won the Oscar for
best foreign-language film in 2014.
He is also known for Il Divo, about Giulio Andreotti, and the
Consequences of Love, both starring Servillo.
Youth (2015) was Sorrentino's second English-language film,
and featured Michael Caine as a retired orchestra conductor.
It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film
Festival.
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