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Corruption of architecture and architecture of corruption, the opening image pans from a construction site in long-shot to Rod Steiger in close-up and the titles play over baleful aerial views of urban Naples. A double city, above ground and underground (cf. Metropolis), "full of holes." Systemic rot shows on the surface, an edifice collapses and an investigation is launched. "All profit and no risks," promises Steiger's building speculator and councilman, who's all too conscious of his resemblance to Mussolini in election posters. Not the "outlaw" he's accused of being, merely a human gear in a vast machine of institutionalized power plays, one swarming element in a geometric view of the political chamber. "What about moral responsibility?" Shoddy façades crumble before the searching gaze, says Francesco Rosi, a camera can do that. The theater of lawmakers, alliances and evictions, a screenful of palms raised in fraudulent outrage. Kazan's pile-driver (On the Waterfront), Welles' cavern of files (The Trial). Money must flow, "it's not a car that can sit idle in the garage." ("See how democracy works," says the mayor passing out lira bills to begging crones.) Opposing parties and the all-important majority, the soft center where inquiries dissolve. The land abstracted, maps and maquettes and blown-up billboards, and in reality filled with corrosion and displaced tenants. The hospital visit adduces a note from Reed's The Third Man, the culprit emerges as building commissioner, even richer. "Vote for those who don't profit at your expense." The inauguration at the close receives the Church's blessing, and three decades later Rosi returns to see how little has changed (Diario napoletano). Cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo. With Salvo Randone, Guido Alberti, Angelo D'Alessandro, Dante Di Pinto, Carlo Fermariello, and Vincenzo Metafora. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |