Italy disgraced former leader has been oddly untouched by two decades of cinematic skewerings. With Loro, the nation’s most gifted film-maker takes aim
One night in 2001, flicking through the TV channels during a year of study in Italy, I chanced on an advert in which a woman in a swimming costume came into a room with a pool. She dived in and began to swim from one end to the other. It was unclear what the advert would be for – swimming costumes? pools? – so my flatmates and I quickly made bets. Finally, the nubile woman reached the end of the pool and swam up to … a plate of raw mushrooms, picking one of them up and nuzzling it. A caption and jingle closed off the enterprise, directing viewers to buy mushrooms.
This was the year of the second electoral victory of Silvio Berlusconi, owner of Italy’s largest TV company, including three of the country’s seven TV channels. You can’t talk about Berlusconi without talking about television, and you can’t talk about Italian television without mentioning Berlusconi. His wealth and profile stem in great part from his association with cheap television – quiz shows, reality TV – that constantly objectifies women. Paolo Sorrentino’s new film, Loro, which focuses on Berlusconi around the time of the “bunga-bunga” parties and the earthquake in L’Aquila, certainly embraces this aspect. In a blistering dressing-down given to Silvio by his wife (who may safely be taken as Sorrentino’s mouthpiece), she tells him: “You sold out Italian culture, people’s hopes and the dignity of women.” Later, she says: “You flooded the schedules with adverts, promotional messages, soap operas, smutty variety shows, B-movies and idiotic quiz shows.”
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