| The Caiman | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Nanni Moretti |
| Produced by | Angelo Barbagallo |
| Written by | Nanni Moretti Heindrun Schleef Federica Pontremoli Francesco Piccolo |
| Starring | Silvio Orlando Margherita Buy Jasmine Trinca Michele Placido Giuliano Montaldo Nanni Moretti |
| Music by | Franco Piersanti |
| Distributed by | Sacher Film |
| Release date(s) | 2006 |
| Running time | 112 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
The Caiman (Italian: Il Caimano, referring to the caiman) is a 2006 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Nanni Moretti and starring Silvio Orlando and Margherita Buy. Focusing on Silvio Berlusconi's vicissitudes, it was released just before the beginning of the 2006 elections, in which Berlusconi lost. It was one of the most successful films of 2006 in Italy. It was entered into the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
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Opening with a wedding between two young Communists, officiated by a CP functionary, under the poster of Mao-Tse Tung, the bride suddenly spears the man and escapes, chased by the police. This is the end of 'Cataratte', a 10-years old action B-movie projected in an open air cinema in honor of Bruno Bonomo (Silvio Orlando), a cockeyed film producer, who did some trash movies starring his wife Paola (Margherita Buy) in the 1970s. He also has two young sons loved by him and his wife. During this hommage, a young woman presents him the script of a movie she wants to direct with his help.
Slated to start on a project celebrating the return voyage of Columbus just after his discovery of America, Bruno is stunned when his director, Franco Caspio, quits because of the low budget. Suddenly Bruno has no projects, no financing and no leverage.
Added to his many troubles, Bruno's wife asks for a separation even though they have two sons. She wants to pursue her artistic options.
Bruno reads the offered script and realizes that it's a thinly disguised account of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media magnate who promoted his political career through his TV stations. Knowing this could draw political and legal heat, not to mention difficulty for finding funding, the young woman convinces Bruno to start production on The Caiman. The film shows how secret money, slush funds and Swiss bank accounts start Il Caimano's career as a big building developer. She hopes that the film will influence voters in the elections slated for 2006.
Starting to fall in love with the writer, Bruno meets her lesbian partner and her son 'made' in a 'journey' to the Netherlands.
The production of the film is rife with problems, including the defection of the main actor Marco Pulici (Michele Placido), but the plot of The Caiman also deals with the domestic issues between Bonomo and Paola until their final separation, with the compromises made for their two sons.
Despite growing evidence that his film will never be completed, Bonomo decides to shoot the last scene, which shows the political nucleus behind the film: in it, Silvio Berlusconi (played by Nanni Moretti himself) enters the tribunal room to hear the ruling against him (see Legal investigations of Berlusconi), which sentences him to seven years of jail. Notwithstanding the sentence, Berlusconi/Moretti exits the tribunal while a crowd throws debris at the judges, including a Molotov cocktail.
The whole, crude scene is not only an allusion to Berlusconi's judiciary controversies, but also to his powerful ability to communicate, which (in Moretti's view) led Italian people to support him anyway despite his controversial past.
Numerous Italian film makers play minor parts in the film. These include Paolo Sorrentino, Giuliano Montaldo, Carlo Mazzacurati, Tatti Sanguinetti, Paolo Virzì and Antonello Grimaldi while actor and director Michele Placido is one of the main characters.
In Moretti's words, The Caiman is not only a political film. He stated that the film deals mainly with the cultural vices of Italian people, and also the story about the dissolution of a common family. Basically, this is a movie that talks about the making of a movie, between personal and economical troubles, territory opened by Nanni Moretti in his previous production Aprile.
Although the project script is meant to address Berlusconi, the first 17 minutes of this movie cover Bruno and his troubles.
The first important scene in the 'real Caimano history' is a suitcase full of money crashing through his office's ceiling. Caimano uses this wind fall to start his career building an entire community project costing 500 million lires per day. No clearer explanation has been offered in real life.
Other scenes are more explicit. When 'The Caiman' (no other name is given for this title character) find Italian government investigators in his offices, searching for sources of his money, he hires away the chief investigator, Cesari, and uses him as trusted consultant.
Scenes with the 'real' Berlusconi show him testifying in a trial talking about his lavish presents to supporters. Another clip exposes his heavyhanded oratory at the European Parliament when as the president in July 2003 he called a critical Martin Schultz "Kapò", a Nazi police agent. But Berlusconi made no secret that he thought the European Parliamentarians to be 'Tourists of democracy' (minutes 45-47).
Other explicit episodes about Berlusconi include discussions with Indro Montanelli, his start in politics in 1993, the building of Milano 2 and the Swiss black funds.
The Caiman's economic abundance contrasts sharply with the money scarcity in Italian cinematographic industry. To make the Columbus movie, given the budget offered by public TV, Bruno wanted to use a ship's model made by Caspio's grandson. That was all that could be afforded. In a later sequence, Bruno follows a transport truck loaded with Columbus' full sized sailing ship. Arriving at the night set of the Columbus movie, Bruno finds his ex-director Caspio as director and ex-leading man Pulici as Columbus. Although initially Bruno's concept, the project was switched to a wealthier producer Aurelio De Laurentiis when Bruno failed to obtain financing. (see the Caravella initial discussion).
Another pointed comment at minute 22, 'Tell me, how frequently do Italian movies use an helicopter?', refers to Caimano's personal frequent use.
'Modern relations style' threads throughout Moretti's film. Cell phone calls play a critical role no less than 18 times in the film and in the story. Cell phones seem to offer a way to participate in another location at the same time, although as noted the use detracts from full attention needed or deserved in both places. Lego bricks play an aggregation element for all the family. Both parents and sons hunt together to find missing pieces to finish the 'astroship'. When they separate, due to the choice made by Bruno's wife, the astroship is broken by their son.
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