Gallo cedrone (1998)

Armando Feroci, a Roman volunteer with the Italian Red Cross, is kidnapped and sentenced to death by a group of Islamic fundamentalists in a North African country. The incident becomes a national affair, mobilizing politicians and the media. Through interviews with and recollections by people close to him, a series of episodes, at times comic and at times grotesque, paints the picture of an immature, reckless, and also obnoxious individual. On the street, for example, he makes advances to women passing by that verge on the ridiculous. In an interview, his ex-wife Marcella recounts how he won her over in a comic yet squalid reworking of a scene from Last Tango in Paris. Their marriage ends after one of his cruel pranks causes her to have a miscarriage. A devoted Elvis Presley fan, he tries, unsuccessfully, to convince the members of a ramshackle fan club that he is Elvis’s secret son. Some time later, Armando visits his brother Franco, a wealthy, conventional dentist who has recently married Martina, an unemployed blind woman in her twenties. Although at first he seems to accept a job offer from Franco as a chauffeur, Armando wins his sister-in-law’s heart by running away with her. Finally free of her boring, oppressive husband, the young woman asks him to grant her wishes, such as visiting Italy’s most famous cities and taking part in a striptease contest, eventually even wanting to drive a car on a beach. But because Armando is distracted and Martina is blind, the protagonist is hit by the car and left in a coma. During his hospital stay, Egle, a New Age fanatic nurse, cares for him until he recovers. When he wakes up, Armando seems like a mature, selfless man and joins the Red Cross. After being released following a long and delicate negotiation, the real reason for his death sentence comes to light: he had made a crude advance to a local woman, even lifting the veil covering her face, with no regard for the most basic customs of the host country. Armando returns home to general disgrace. Two years later, he once again attracts media attention by running for mayor of Rome at the head of his own civic list. At a campaign rally, he proposes paving over the Tiber to turn it into a huge highway, and concludes by paraphrasing Dante Alighieri: “Through me you enter the laughing city; through me you enter eternal splendor.”