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FILMS / REVIEWS Italy

Review: The Illusion

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- Roberto Andò directs an amusing comedy, once again starring Toni Servillo and the comic duo Ficarra & Picone but this time grappling with the landing of the Thousand in Sicily in 1860

Review: The Illusion
Salvo Ficarra, Toni Servillo and Valentino Picone in The Illusion

It seemed like an impossible mission: overturning the Bourbon government and uniting Italy by endorsing the peasant revolts in Sicily, and doing so with the sole support of a thousand or so volunteers. But it’s a feat which Giuseppe Garibaldi pulled off, this hero of the two worlds who wore blue jeans, a red shirt and a South American poncho like the one worn by Clint Eastwood in the Dollars Trilogy. Like other filmmakers before him, Roberto Andò has decided to tackle the historical “Expedition of the Thousand”, which was a decisive episode in the Italian Risorgimento, in The Illusion, which involves the same co-screenwriters - Ugo Chiti and Massimo Gaudioso - and the same basic cast as the director’s previous movie Strangeness [+see also:
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, which depicted a Sicily-based encounter between the great playwright Luigi Pirandello, played by Toni Servillo, and two unknown, amateur actors, played by the comedy duo composed of Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone. Selected for the Limelight section in the upcoming IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, the film is due to hit Italian cinemas on 16 January, courtesy of 01 Distribution.

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The movie sees Servillo adopting the martial attire and moustachioed appearance of Palermo-born colonel Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, who was one of Garibaldi’s (Tommaso Ragno) most loyal officers. The film opens in 1860 in Liguria, where volunteers are being recruited for the expedition and where two singular (fictitious) characters prove particularly eye-catching: Domenico Tricò, a humble peasant and expert fireworks handler who has emigrated to the North (Ficarra), and Rosario Spitale (Picone), a noble-born yet penniless Sicilian who’s an adventurer and a deft hand at card games. The footage of Garibaldi’s men, clad in red shirts and carrying muskets as they embark on this great adventure, seems to take inspiration from Alessandro Blasetti’s 1934 masterpiece 1860, which is considered to be a forerunner of neorealism and is a favourite of fascism, which passed itself off as the natural heir to the Risorgimento. At first glance, the landing of the Thousand in Marsala, Sicily, only seems to be a slightly less blood-filled rehash of the Omaha Beach landing seen in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. It’s only when we see Domenico and Rosario fleeing the Bourbon cannon fire and clumsily jockeying for a hiding place between the rocks that we understand the director’s intentions.

The Illusion advances along the twin tracks of historical drama and comedy. On the one hand, it follows the exploits of Colonel Orsini, who Garibaldi has charged with orchestrating a diversion to convince the Swiss commander of the royal army, Jean-Luc Von Mechel (Pascal Greggory), that the poncho-clad general is retreating inland rather than marching on Palermo; on the other, we see the exciting adventures of our unintentional duo of deserters, who only enlisted in the first place to get a ride home. Ficarra and Picone work wonderfully together, paying homage to other famous duos from classic Italian comedies, and drawing out laughs when Domenico discovers the woman he’d promised to marry has changed her mind, for example, or when Rosario cheats at cards and fleeces the nuns who’d been hiding the two fugitives in their convent, the youngest of whom (Giulia Andò) we later find has shaken off her religious habit to play a role in the rebellion. Drama and comedy ultimately converge, because everyone knows that cowards in films soon turn into heroes. The pompous, patriotic assertions made by Colonel Orsini, drawing on Risorgimento rhetoric, ultimately fade into disillusionment, linking back to the film’s title. Once again, we find cinema availing itself of the past to explore the present, and Andò does so expertly, cunningly and with lightness of hand, trusting in Toni Servillo’s soberly measured performance and the photographic prowess of his faithful collaborator Maurizio Calvesi, who captures the region’s vibrant light and frames the rugged beauty of an unusually green Sicily (Trapani and the town of Erice, and Palermo for the external and interior shots) as if it were a Western.

The Illusion was produced by Tramp Ltd and Bibi Film in league with RAI Cinema and Medusa Film, in collaboration with Netflix. World sales are entrusted to RAI Cinema International Distribution.

(Translated from Italian)

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