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12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 MAY 2019 FILM FILM FOLLOWING along a neat through-line in the celebrated Italian director's career, Paolo Sorrentino's 'Loro' is as much a depiction of the latter days of Silvio Berlusconi's political career as it is a meditation on old age and death, punctuated by scenes of glossy decadence that would give both Gaspar Noe and Michael Bay a run for their money, all the while run- ning a stylistic bow over the proceedings that out-smarts and out-pretties them all. As such, it's ground that was very well covered in Sor- rentino's The Consequences of Love (2004) and his Oscar- winning international break- out The Great Beauty (2013), both of which star his recur- ring collaborator Toni Servilio, as well as his more recent (and significantly weaker) Youth (2015), which doesn't. Servilio is back on the Sorren- tino saddle with 'Loro' -- and playing Italy's tabloid-baiting former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, no less. It's not the first time that the director had Servilio play a controversial Italian prime minister, either; the actor portrayed Giulio An- dreotti in Sorrentino's cult hit Il Divo (2008) just over a dec- ade ago. Originally released in two separate installments in Ital- ian cinemas – think Kill Bill or, closer to the bone(ing), Lars von Trier's Nymphoma- niac duology – 'Loro' reaches us as a truncated one-film edi- tion whose awkward smushed- togetherness leaves a bitter, disoriented taste. The experience, however, remains a devilishly beguiling concoction, blending Sorren- tino's gilded-and-languid aes- thetic with the political inci- siveness of Il Divo. Sorrentino calibrates the pitch of it all as early on as an introductory disclaimer – overlong and overly thorough, it comes across as both a nec- essary legal salve and a middle finger to the sleazy, overarch- ing political forces whose inner workings he has set out to put under his microscope. We are then regaled with a sequence involving a sheep on what we later learn is Berlusconi's Sar- dinian getaway which is both blackly funny and, we sense, laded with metaphorical im- port. With the conviction of an artist at the top of his game, Sorrentino even withholds the on-screen appearance of 'Sil- vio' himself until close to the half-way mark. Instead, our way into the empire of sleaze that made that prime minis- ter's name is through Sergio Morra (Riccardo Scamarcio), someone who euphemistically refers to himself as a 'talent scout' but who really and truly is a glorified pimp, working in tandem with his partner Ta- mara (Euridice Axen) to secure a coterie of women he would then use to lubricate corrupt political dealings. Sergio experiences a revela- tion when he notices a tattoo on the body of one of his 'girls' while having sex with her: it is the face of Silvio Berulsconi, the man he realises he needs to court if he is to have any hope of climbing the social ladder in his erstwhile profession. Gath- ering an army of nubile young women with the help of Kira (Kasia Smutniak) – known as 'The Queen Bee', she is a well- connected mirror image of Sergio's aspirations – he sets up shop in Sardinia, renting out a villa that overlooks Sil- vio's own. Sergio hopes that his blaring, decadent feast will attract Sil- vio's attention, but the embat- tled former prime minister has his mind on other things. Nev- er mind that he's stewing in opposition… his wife Victoria (Elena Sofia Ricci), is no longer warming up to his affections; a true blow for the construction magnate turned media mogul turned prime minister. The structural awkwardness that plagues Sorrentino's film is quite a shame – perhaps an inevitable side-effect of hav- ing to combine two films in one and trim nearly an hour of footage in the process – be- cause it is otherwise a beguil- ing, at times even spellbinding, take on cinematic political bi- ography. Indeed, this isn't a biopic that trims and leapfrogs historical facts in the interest of simple brevity, or to better conform to established storytelling struc- tures. The liberties Sorrentino and his co-writer Umberto Contarello take are done to en- hance the stylings of the film's unique world: one that blends reality with something resem- bling a fairy-tale dimension occupied by nymphs, trick- sters, goblins and – crowning it all – a rictus-grinning God- Emperor. Even Sergio's parties are, in the end, pitched as a collective ritualised bacchanalia meant to summon Silvio – the demi- god of riches and opportunity, who magically eschews all laws and is free from consequence. But for all the Wolf of Wall Street-style scenes of excess, it is the more intimate moments that are more likely to leave a lasting impression. One of these is a climactic confronta- tion with his wife, a stagey-in- the-best-way verbal sparring session that draws clear inspi- ration from the real-life Victo- ria's open letter to Berlusconi, where she announced her de- sire for a divorce in the pages of La Repubblica. But even more ingenious is the moment when a bored and dejected Silvio – reeling in both romantic and political ex- ile – decides to pick a random name from the phone book and make a call. An elderly woman picks up, and Silvio snaps back to the good old days in real estate. An intrusive phone call slow- ly but surely transforms into a convincing sales pitch for a non-existent property that the lady doesn't even want to hear about, but is in the end convinced she may just have a need for after all. Like any good salesman, Sil- vio is revealed to be an expert in the mechanics of desire. Paolo Sorrentino is back on stylish, twisty form with this sprawling, and often counter- intuitive, take on the twilight years of Silvio Berlusconi's political career LORO L'ORO LOOKING GOOD LOOMING DOOM LOO ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The verdict Though the desire to es- chew smooth storytelling in favour of crafting a cheeky, dream-like portrait of the last days of Silvio Berlusco- ni's political career may raise eyebrows, Paolo Sor- rentino's sprawling feature hardly lacks bite. By dan- gling the spectre of mortal- ity in front of the unrepent- ant political iconoclast's botoxed face, Sorrentino may actually have succeeded in finally hitting him where it hurts. Loro will be screened at Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta on May 29 at 7.30pm, June 1 at 7.30pm, June 7, at 7.30pm, June 9 at 8pm Teodor Reljic ★ ★ ★ ★ LO R O ( 18 ) Help the aged… or rather, don't Life of the party: Toni Servillio and Kasia Smutniak in Paolo Sorrentino's cheeky, tricksy take on the latter-day political life of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi