Film Reviews

Good Morning Night

• Rating:
• Director: Marco Bellocchio
• Starring: Giovanni Calcagno
• Details: Ita/ 104 mins/ (no cert)

Like this summer's I'm Not Scared, Good Morning, Night is set in 1970s Italy, which has been ravaged by kidnappings and civic unrest. Based on the kidnapping of Italian political head Aldo Moro by the Red Brigade in 1978, the film, most interestingly, focuses on the desperate motivations of the kidnappers as much as the plight of the man they abducted. Ciara (Sansa) is a member of the Red Brigade, though she leads an outwardly respectable front, maintaining a job as a librarian in the university. Her husband and fellow terrorist (Bellocchio), along with two accomplices (Lo Cascio and Calcagno), are holding Moro (Herlitzka) in an apartment. As the entire country rises up at this latest atrocity, Moro argues for his release with his kidnappers, while one of them goes through a crisis of conscience.
As its spliced with real news reel from the period, Good Morning, Night, though partly fictionalised, almost has the air of a documentary, neatly complemented by the rudimentary human drama unfolding in the kidnapper's lair. Although Bellocchio shows restraint when it comes to the drama, sometime he's too cautious, allowing the material to drag. Still, it's the performances where the film stands up and the delicate-looking Sansa is particularly impressive.

Review by Garreth Murphy