1900 (Novecento) - Michael

1900 (Novecento)

315 minutes to tell 45 years of history. That's about x500 speed. But rather than showing the Italian countryside in super fast motion, we're treated to semi-random episodes in the lives of two men. Olmo, the bastard peasant, fated to become a hard-line communist, and Alfredo, the privileged son of the padrone, fated to be, kind of a jerk, I guess? Frankly, neither of the main characters make a whole lot of sense.

Robert De Niro's Alfredo definitely gets the short end of the making-sense stick. As a child, he hates his father, spending time with the peasants, and his outcast gay uncle. He marries some crazy broad. Then, the instant his father dies and he becomes the padrone, he becomes a carbon copy of his father. He spends the spends the rest of the movie tacitly supporting, and impotently opposing the fascists gaining power across the country.

Gérard Depardieu's Olmo is a bit more sympathetic, if not much more understandable. He tends to disappear for long stretches that don't involve him, but when he is on camera, his dialog sounds like something out of The Communist Manifesto. His hatred for landowners obviously conflicts with his friendship with Alfredo, in an surprisingly uninteresting and inconsistent way.

The character to watch out for is Donald Sutherland's Atilla, evil incarnate in a black shirt. From headbutting a cat to death, to dashing a child's brains out against a wall (after possibly raping him?), to shooting a score of whistling peasants, to suffering from male pattern baldness, he's practically a comic book villain.

Overall, the movie was vastly more pro-Communist than I think I've ever seen. I've always felt that America is a little more sympathetic to Fascists than Communists, so the foreign-ness of the film was exaggerated beyond even the language barrier. There's quite a bit of strangeness throughout, from a bizarre cocaine party, to a bit of a fecal obsession throughout. I wouldn't really recommend this movie, excepting extreme interest in Italy in the early 20th century, and even then, it's a bit of a stretch. Save yourself 5 hours, and read the Wikipedia article. By the very end of the movie is awful, and even less coherent than the rest.

By the Numbers:
Running Time: 315 minutes
Time Elapsed in Movie: 45 years, 3 months, 25 days
Number of Sessions We Needed to Watch This Movie: 3
Number of Obvious Messages: 1 (Fascism bad!)
Number of Faults Indicated in Communism: 0
Number of Penises Shown: More than I care to remember
Number of Main Characters who don't Speak Great Italian: 3
Chance that a Berlinghieri padrone Will Die in the Cow Shed: 66%
Chance that Donald Sutherland Will Kill You: Higher than you think

Rating (without alcohol): 2 stars
Rating (with alcohol): 2 stars
Rating (if I studied film): 3 1/2 stars