26/03/2008

An existential noir full of pietas is, according to director Paolo Franchi, the deepest meaning of his second feature, Fallen Heroes, in competition at the latest Venice Film Festival. After his female-driven debut The Spectator, the director looks into the male soul, centring on two very different men: 40-year-old Bruno and the young Luca.

The former, played by Bruno Todeschini, hides from his wife debts incurred with a loan shark and his newfound sterility. With stranger Luca – who seems to inexplicably know those secrets all too well – he shares a deep-seated pain, tied in more ways than one to unresolved issues about paternity.

Although Fallen Heroes teems with psychoanalysis, when asked if he was inspired by the films of Marco Bellocchio, Franchi says: “no, I feel no chosen affinity [with his work]. I only love his Devil in the Flesh, because the doctrine of psychoanalyst Massimo Fagioli, who wrote and inspired that film, is very important to me”.

However, references can be found in other European cinema: “Bruno Dumont and Michael Haneke come to mind”, adds the director. The film certainly little resembles contemporary Italian cinema. To begin with, it features an international cast that also features Iréne Jacob and Maria De Medeiros, as well as very high ambitions.

Ambitions confirmed by Elio Germano, who plays Luca, adding: “You don’t often come across characters that are this important, that allow you to work with the legacy of Dostoevsky and Shakespeare”.

Noble literary fathers also cited by Jacob, along with “Kafka-esque atmospheres, and an ability to depict the unconscious”. The actress thanked Franchi for “the unexpected depth of my role as the wife”.

Produced by Beppe Caschetto’s increasingly more active ITC Movie, Fallen Heroes’s small miracle also consisted of bringing on board two long-time competitors, RAI Cinema and RTI, who appear for the first time ever together as co-producers; along with Bianca Film, support from the Ministry of Culture and with Swiss funds from broadcaster RTSI and Ventura Film.

(Translated from Italian)