I PREDATORI/THE PREDATORS

Italy, 2020, 109 minutes, Colour.

Massimo Popolizio, Manuela Mandracchia, George Montanini, Pietro Castelitto, Dario Cassini, Anita  Caprioili.

Directed by Pietro Castelitti.

Principally a satiric comedy for fans of Italian cinema. The screenplay was written by Pietro Castellitti, son of prominent actor and director, Sergio Castellitti, and the film was directed by him. It received several nominations at the Venice film Festival, 2020, and the screenplay won best screenplay in the Horizon section.

A lot of the action is farcical. However, there are quite a number of serious threads woven throughout the screenplay, conmen and exploitation of the elderly, doctors and lawyers, talent but misbehaviour, unfaithful wives and affairs, and a young man, very interested in Frederick Nietzsche and the exhuming of his body, collaborating with a professor. And, the mother of the young man is a filmmaker.

The characters are basically serious but lend themselves to some satiric situations. Comedy, pathos, ideals, betrayals…

And, ironically, one of the characters at the end of the film beginning an affair with the conman watch seller whom audiences saw at the beginning of the film, selling a watch to an old lady, her son (bringing in political issues as well) setting in motion some kind of saving her and revenge.

1. A perspective on Italian life, creditors and victims, interconnections?
2. The Ostia locations, modest homes, affluent homes, film sets, gun shops, professorial offices…? Atmosphere? The musical score?
3. The initial episode with the watch, the seller, the predator, his spiel, Inez, Ege, baffled, buying the watch? Claudio, his fascist perspectives, upset about his mother? Then her being run over?
4. Inez, the accident, the hospital, doctor a public figure, his treatment, his family, wealthy, Ludovica, his wife, her work on the film, exacting, interactions people on set, ambitions, budgets, problems? Her husband, his role at the hospital, working with Bruno, Bruno and his jokes, his relationship with Bruno’s wife, the affair?
5. Federico, their son, academic, obsessed with the work of Frederik Nietschze? The discussions with his professor, the possibility of exhuming Nietschze’s body? The professor recognition his refusal?
6. Federico, his affluent background, philosophy and study, going to the shop, with Claudio, the buying of the bomb? The explosion and his injury?
7. Claudio, his fascist uncle, the shop, the victim and his background, the threats? Flavio and his influence on Claudio, targeting Federico?
8. Claudio realising that Federico was the son of the doctor who saved his mother’s life? The emotional tangles, pressures, and Claudio’s son, Cesare, Ege 12, the guns, shooting, Flavio’s death? The consequences for Claudio and responsible for his son’s behaviour?
9. Bruno, his death, his wife, beginning the relationship – and with the watch seller from the beginning of the film?
10. Back to the title, who were the predators, the way they were predators, their victims?