Loro

This look at Silvio Berlusconi’s legacy on the political and cultural landscape of Italy chooses some distinctly odd angles. For one thing, it isn’t a complete life story, concentrating instead on the late 2000s, during which period Berlusconi fell into opposition then reclaimed rulership of Italy, and for another, Berlusconi only enters the film a bit over half an hour into the action. We start with an outsider who tries to gain influence through hosting parties full of attractive under-dressed women and free-flowing MDMA, in a villa near Berlusconi’s place. And while, once Berlusconi enters the story he never really leaves again, there’s not a firm sense of plotline tying things together – director Paulo Sarrentino is more interested in long sequences of debauchery and aimless indulgence in the upper classes rather than any particularly directed political intrigue. And it’s true that, as debaucherous montages go, he can certainly shoot beautiful ones. But there’s just not enough material here to justify the extreme running time (nearly two and a half hours) and for someone who isn’t deeply involved in Italian politics, it’s not particularly illuminating about what went on and why Berlusconi was a uniquely Italian phenomenon – how he got away with being so blatantly corrupt for so long. There’s a certain seductive glamour in the early stages but the longer it goes the emptier it feels, which…. I suppose is partially the point, but never the less it doesn’t wind up being a particularly satisfying narrative.