There are films that are almost physically painful to watch, not because they're just dreadful (such as My Blueberry Nights, see above) but because they are so true. I remember watching a theater re-release of Casablanca (actually, twice) during the first Trump administration. Thinking about what America had been and what it was supposed to mean, as compared to what it was becoming, was agonizing. I cry while watching Casablanca every time anyway, but this time the tears simply felt different (watching it now might kill me). Last night I had a somewhat similar experience, re-watching Ettore Scola's wonderful A Special Day. I'm considering using it for the final film analysis in my Images of Fascism class, so I thought I should give it a second look. It's the story of two lonely people, Sophia Loren and Marcelo Mastroianni (both playing against type), meeting and spending the afternoon together on a special day, although the special day in question was the day that Hitler travelled to Rome to meet Mussolini for a huge public celebration. The celebration, and concomitant propaganda, is perpetually playing in the background on the radio, providing a powerful contextual commentary. Mastroianni play a gay, liberal radio commentator and reporter who is waiting for deportment (or worse), while Loren plays a conservative housewife who is a Mussolini fan, complete with her generated scrapbook and portrait made of buttons. No one living through our age ever has to ask how Italy and Germany fell so quickly and effortlessly into authoritarianism. Highly recommended, the film, not Fascism.
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