If you missed in the theaters last year, or you just want to watch it again, Viva La Libertà’s now available on demand with iTunes, Vudu, and Google Play.
When Enrico Oliveri (played by Toni Servillo) the secretary of the major opposition party, goes AWOL and hides out at an old girlfriend’s house in Paris (“What’s he doing here, Mom?” ” I think he just needs a little rest.”), an absurd and Pirandello-esque scenario works surprisingly well.
That he has a twin brother, and that twin brother is a bi-polar philosopher just recently released from a mental hospital, and that twin brother should be enlisted to impersonate the missing politician in his absence may seem nothing more than an Italian version of “The Parent Trap”, but it’s a lot more. The absurdity of today’s Italian government kind of requires a preposterous skewering, and Viva la Libertà is it. Do politicians need to go back to real life and “rest” once in a while to refresh their perspectives, and does a country sometimes need a madman to say the things that nobody else has the guts or the vision to say?
It’s funny, it’s insightful, it’s smart, and it’s got Toni Servillo (La Grande Bellezza), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Il Capitale Umano), and Valerio Mastandrea. Based on the director, Roberto Andò’s own novel, this one’s a MUST SEE.
Thanks to Distrib Films US (and you should FOLLOW THEM ON FACEBOOK and TWITTER)
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