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This is How Movies Should Be Made

Boring

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I saw this film two times in 1973 and a few years later again in art cinemas in the United States. I vividly remember the opening line, "I'm off to kill Mussolini. Screw the rest." While Fox Lorber put this film on DVD in 1997, it is now unavailable and sells for $37 used. I bought a made-in-China copy for $5 on Ebay. I was a bit upset when the first title read only "I'm off to kill Mussolini." I wondered why the change? Anyways the rest of the DVD seemed fine.This is an amazing film. The acting by everyone is superb, with Giancarlo Gianini giving a performance that won him a best acting award at the Cannes film festival and should have won him an Oscar. He is Chaplinesque, but not imitative of Chaplin or anybody else. It is one of the most sympathetic performances ever given. In many scenes, he doesn't talk, but you sense his feelings of anger or sadness. His mass of freckles on his face make him look more like a 14 year old than a man planning a major political assassination. Mariangela Melato is sexy, foul-mouthed and hilarious. She also manages to make you believe that she is both a cynical prostitute and a politically and culturally aware anarchist. Lina Polito is the young prostitute with hope. She gives a performance similar to and as wonderful as Liza Minnelli in "Cabaret." The musical score by Federico Fellini's main composer, Nino Rota, is energetic and terrific. It often counterpoints the action on the screen, bringing us away from it, and making some harsh scenes seem comical, but it also heightens the playfulness or menace in other crucial scenes. He won an Oscar for the Godfather Part II a few years later, but he deserved one here too. This is a tribute to the European nihilist and anarchist movements of the 1800 and 1900's. It is also powerfully anti-fascist.This is great and enthralling film-making. It is Lina Wertmuller's best film and still stands out today, nearly 40 years later, as a great historical and humanist work of art. It is sad that more people do not know about it and have not had the opportunity to experience it.Having seen about 6,000 films (150 films X 40 years), I would put this one in the top twenty.

Giannini at his best , a cult wertmuller movie that has been forgotten but it's a very good movie not only for Italian public but also for cinema lovers of all genres. it's the story of a poor man , Tunin which he must kill Mussolini during a ceremony. So he stayed for a couple of days in a house where there are women that offer sexual lends by paying. Tunin will fall in love with two of them and that will be negative for his mission. The excellent acting and the lina wertmuller's directing made this film a masterpiece and a realistic portrait of Italy of the '30. Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato are really wonderful and they show that Italian acting is at American level

Directed by Lina Wertmüller in 1973, "Love & Anarchy" is an indisputable classic. Universally identifiable and immediately entertaining, Wertmüller carries her audience into the mind and times of Turin, a peasant in 1930s Italy. When one of his close friends and idols is killed by fascists, Turin becomes obsessed with anarchist ideals he hardly understands, and sets off to exact an awful vendetta--the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The plan gets off-track when Turin falls in love with Tripolina, a prostitute in the bordello where he lives in the days leading up to the assassination attempt. We soon learn that Tripolina returns his love, and the tragic stage is set. Knowing full well that the assassination attempt, successful or not, will surely mean his death, Turin is suddenly gripped by fear. When all he had at stake was a quiet life on the farm, he was glad to give it up for a chance at changing the quality of life for his peasant countrymen. But now, having tasted the happiness love can afford, can Turin really carry through with this suicidal act? Can he truly give up his life for a belief he once thought was worth dying?"Love & Anarchy" is a brilliant study of turmoil and human testing in the face of insurmountable odds. It begs the question--is it better to bow and live, or stand up and die? How much can a people be crushed before someone makes a sacrifice for the betterment of society? Whose responsibility is it? And on a grander scale, is it better to live happily, contented by love or family, and leave the world untouched, or to attempt real change by sacrificing everything in exchange for it? "Love & Anarchy" poses all these questions, but it offers no easy answers.Wertmüller's favorite actor, Giancarlo Giannini, plays the peasant boy, Turin, with beautiful humility. He wordlessly portrays infinite subtleties of emotion with body language and facial expression alone. Giannini has the face of a silent movie actor, and in fact was touted as a new Chaplin in the 1970s. Playing opposite him as the prostitute Salome is Mariangela Melato, who viewers may recognize from Wertmüller's "Swept Away." She, too, delivers a wonderful performance. The style and pacing of the film are excellent. Cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno captures Rome in a gorgeous, yet unobtrusive manner.In "Love & Anarchy," Wertmüller doesn't pull any punches. As par usual, she lets the politics of her movie decide the fate of its characters, and tragedy ensues. One must admire her for making an extraordinarily brave and beautiful film. She exhibits how powerful and effective a tragic story can truly be in exploring the more complex questions of life.

I loved, loved, loved this film. This is Wertmuller's best film in my opinion.SPOILERS Tunin is a poor farmer from the south who decides he must take over the role of Mussolini's assassin after his older, anarchist friend is killed by the fascists in his attempt to assassinate Mussolini.Tunin meets his conspiratorial contact in a brothel, where she works undercover, so to speak. He also meets another prostitute with whom he falls in love. Wertmuller does a very good job with the romantic storyline as well.Although Tunin's first reason for assassinating Mussolini was that he "hates tyrants," he also was doing it to get revenge for his friend, but also he hoped that in this act he would "beome" someone. This story had a more universal theme of how people try to become "someone" when they feel like a "no one," and it also makes you wonder how many people there are that were like Tunin, trying to change things and failing to the point that no one even knew they had tried in the first place. Sadly, in the end, Tunin remains an unknown, and it is so sad, yet the ending is so well done, and I really think the original title is much more powerful than just "Love and Anarchy" because of the ending. At 10 o'clock in the morning, in via dei Fiori, in a well-known brothel... he is no one. I love Giancarlo Giannini, and he does a really good job in this film playing a different character than his usual Wertmuller characters.