New Sorrentino film 'Loro' on power of Berlusconi

(ANSA) - Rome, April 24 - 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.