Who owns our days?
This is the question that the soon to be retired President of Italy grapples with in Paolo Sorrentino’s latest political parable, LA GRAZIA.
Nearing the end of his presidency, Mariano De Santis, procrastinates over the signing of a Euthanasia bill and the petitioning of two pardons.
There is a confluence to these three preoccupations as the perpetrators of the homicides can claim their acts as assisted dying. One liberates his wife of the scourge of Alzheimer’s, the other liberates her spouse from a self diagnosed domestic violence virus, a sick psyche, that saw him subject her to years of torture and torment.
While ruminating on these issues, his beloved horse, Elvis, falls ill, and the question of equine liquidation is raised; the euthanising of an animal deemed humane as opposed to the suffering of humans being a sacred state and beyond the realm of humane action.
The president’s personal priest is the Pope which make for the separation of church and state a moot point.
Rap music, contemporary dance, an astronaut shedding tears in zero gravity are all part and parcel of this contemplative picture.
Toni Servillo plays the President with steadfast gravity, embodying his character’s nickname of “Reinforced Concrete”.
Anna Ferzetti is fabulous as his daughter, Dorotea, a filial duty in conflict with a stupendous urge for belated independence.
Milvia Marigliano is marvelous as Coco, long time confidante and keeper of a secret that haunts De Santis’ memory of his deceased wife.
LA GRAZIA, translates into English as grace, and this contemplative narrative is a portrait of grace under pressure, the solitude of statesmanship, of popular leadership unpersuaded by Populism. It’s a reflective wrestling with responsibility, a picture of a prudent President, not a petulant one.
Morality and mortality, meaty topics served with a side salad of melancholy and memory, LA GRAZIA is hale, merry and full of grace.
