The Washington Diplomat

Cannes-Winner Moretti Gets Serious

Nanni Moretti is perhaps the most important Italian director of the last 25 years. The writer-director-producer-actor has been dubbed the “Italian Woody Allen” for his whimsical comedies about personal neuroses, albeit with a political edge.

“Dear Diary” (Best Director, Cannes 1994) and “Aprile” (1997) were especially autobiographical, with Moretti essentially playing himself. “The Son’s Room” won the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2001, the first time in more than 20 years for an Italian film.

At the Four Seasons, I had tea and coffee with Moretti, who was neatly dressed in a sports coat and slacks. Though Moretti has a reputation for being difficult, he is formal and extremely well-composed—with one exception: After spilling his coffee, he threw a small, animated tantrum.

Moretti’s latest work, “The Son’s Room,” about a family’s recovery after a son’s accidental death, is a departure from his typical style. It’s his most serious, least political movie. “I was not surprised because I lived this movie for quite a while thinking about it or writing about it. There are inside it experiences from the previous movies that have been filtered through the framework. Once I chose the theme, it was the only way to make the film,” Moretti said.

“This is the first time, as a director and as an actor, I let myself get so carried away with the mood and emotions of a film. I was totally absorbed with the pain that I wanted to portray,” Moretti revealed. “As a director, I did not want to avoid the harshness of [the family’s] reality.”

He continued, “I really felt the need to make this story. I have never had such strong feelings before about any of my films. I don’t think it is connected to my [1995] experience with cancer really because this is not a film about being afraid of death. It is more about how life goes on.”

Moretti concluded, “The journey to find Arianna [the dead son’s secret girlfriend] enables the family to find once again a bond, not only through grief, but through affection. In the end, they each still must go their own way, but they do so closer to one another. Their lives will never be the same as before, but something starts to resolve itself.”

— Ky N. Nguyen