Videocracy
Dir: Erik Gandini
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Lorber Films
85 Minutes
A turning point in Videocracy takes place at the home of Lele Mora – TV mogul and close friend of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – a hilltop palace crawling with reality stars. Following a tour of his snowy white bedroom, Mora beams while showing off a video on his cell phone, an old Mussolini rallying song, complete with flashing Nazi insignia. “I love Mussolini,” he proclaims.
It’s here that the film swings beyond a slightly perverse study of a fame-obsessed culture, and things only get crazier. This is Italy, a country where the extremes of religious faith and fiery passion do more than coexist, melding into a strange atmosphere where insane behavior is presented with the solemnity of a Catholic mass. It’s a place where Mussolini’s granddaughter is not only a public figure but a politician who has appeared nude in Playboy and once responded to the jibes of a transgender political opponent by claiming “I’d rather be a fascist than a faggot.”
Yet it’s also a country where a transgender person can viably run for prime minister. Director Erik Gandini never really delves into this disparity; a filmmaker with a distinctly anti-capitalist bent, he’s more intent on showing us how the mix of repression and lunacy has merged into a kind of bacchanalian conservatism. Its ringleader, as Gandini proposes, is Berlusconi, whose regime has ushered in a new era of government complemented by television.
The prime minister, who made his fortune in TV, is still the independent owner of three stations. This means that, with his added control over the national networks, he commands 90% of Italy’s airwaves. The result is a singularly twisted cult of personality, where commercials feature models singing “Thank God Silvio exists!” Gandini sets up the film as a piece of spirited invective against the Berlusconi administration, as well as the culture it’s helped to create, using a simple programming format: populist variety shows with a hearty helping of cheesecake. The leader is positioned as a sort of two-headed beast, corruptly lording over the country, while using the promise of fame and bared breasts to keep it in a daze.
Videocracy functions well as directed attack. It makes no claims at objectivity and handles its rage well, although the pitch of it sometimes comes off as the indignant foot-stamping of an irate citizen. Seeing the state of things as Gandini presents them, it’s difficult to blame him.
Videocracy’s depiction of a world turned upside down often seems more like the realm of overwrought satire than real life, a place where a quickly-fading paparazzo offers a family money to wear promotional T-shirts at their murdered daughters funeral. Mora, with a reputation for making stars, sells their personal information on the side. At times it feels like Gandini has his hands full with the material. But this is mostly a consequence of the unwieldiness of this kind of insanity. What is there to feel but half-amused disgust? Like the TV it rails against, Videocracy is a spectacle, albeit one brimming over with bitterness and disgust.
by Jesse Cataldo
