A new director is born, his name is Luigi Lo Cascio

by Camillo de Marco

01/09/2012 - If there is just one thing opinion-makers, intellectuals and gurus alike agree on, it is that political and societal practices no longer entail the same sense of duty, civic awareness and ethics as they once did.

Luigi Lo Cascio, a beloved actor who came into his own with Marco Tullio Giordana, Marco Bellocchio and Mario Martone, has decided to brazenly and audaciously confront the tricky ‘morality question’.

Opening Venice International Film Critics’ Week, La città ideale [trailer], is a debut film, which received support from producer Angelo Barbaglio, bringing a slightly ambiguous, moralizing thriller to the big screen.

Michele Grassadonia, played by Lo Cascio himself, is a Sicilian architect transplanted to Siena, Tuscany, a place he considers ideal. He is a relentless supporter of eco-sustainability. One rainy night, while he is driving his electric car, he provokes an accident and later comes to the rescue of someone who has been run over - one of the city’s notables. As a result of these incidents, he is accused of manslaughter, entering into a spiral, which forces him to seek out the truth.

Whether Pirandello, Kafka or A Pure Formality’s Tornatore, Lo Cascio maintains an underlying sense of humour which saves the film from the weight of its central theme. Just as Bertold Brecht wrote, “we sat on the side of wrong, because all the other seats were taken.”

(Translated from Italian)