Maledetti vi amerò (1980) AKA To Love the Damned

Maledetti vi amerò (Marco Tullio Giordana, 1979).

if you enjoyed the curtain-twitching paranoid and claustrophobic atmosphere of R.W. Fassbinder’s Deutschland im Herbst (1978) and Die dritte Generation (1979), and/or if you are fascinated and appalled by the politics and machinations of the so-called ‘strategy of tension’ (see: Office of Strategic Services and NATO’s ‘Operation Gladio’) as it played out in Italy, Germany and other european countries during the 1960s-1990s, they you have to watch this purely to vicariously experience the sense of societal dread and existential despair the publics of those countries felt (those on the left of the political spectrum most of all) trying to sustain a rational and ethical sense of purpose and meaning as reality disappeared for three decades beyond a veil of shadows and double dealing actors (perhaps Giulio Andreotti and Helmut Schmidt above all).

there are many superb european films from this period that touch on exactly this sense of existential dread and paranoia (though focusing less directly on politics, the anxieties exploreed spring from the same toxic politcal causes).
Elio Petri’s superb Buone Notizie (1979) and Bernard Blier’s equally wonderful ‘Buffet Froid’ (1979), two films worth watching back-to-back in order to appreciate both how similar they are (and appearing in the same year, the film being reviewed here being released the follwing year), but to confirm that this sense of existential dread and paranoia cannot be explained away simply by blaming italian politics for being a bottomless pit (although it far too frequently is), because that ominous atmosphere was experienced (and given voice through the culture) just as deeply in the France of that period too.

from a directorial perspective, the film very much marks a young Tullio Giordana setting out his stall with regard to the themes that would dominate his films for the following thirty years.
of these i can highly recommend his Romanzo Di Una Strage (2012), which seeks to piece together what was left of italy after it’s boom years were shattered at the end of the decade with the terrorist bomb attack on the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan 1969. and also Pasolini, un delitto italiano (1995) (a film which can be found on this very site, thank you Jon).
though the primary focus of the latter film stays on the brutal murder of the legendary italian film director and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of the key reasons that the circumstances of his death remained opaque and inscrutable for so long was due to a wholesale cover-up by all levels of the italian legal and political system. following a notorious investigation in 1990, Andreotti himself was forced to reveal to the italian parliment that Operation Gladio was the string-pulling hand behind much of this.

as to the formal qualities of this film, though a film clearly made on a budget (Tullio Giordana being relatively unknown at the time), and (sadly) has not been picked up by Cinecittà or Criterion for restoration, in may ways the darkness and graininess of the image only serves to enhance the claustrophobic and desolate tone of the narrative (another family resemblance this film bears with Fassbinders ‘Deutschland im Herbst’).
the direction is playful, even mischievous, as it follows Svitol trying repeatedly (even desperately) to pick up the threads of the life he left behind on his departure, in order to try to carry on from where he left off, only to find the cloth to which those threads were once attached (the party, the movement, the cameraderie) no longer exists.

it’s Flavio Bucci (a profoundly underestimated actor outside italy) that plays lead (a hero or anti-hero, however you wish to see him). newly returned from a latin america that in the 1960s seemed to embody the greatest hopes of the radical left (Che and Fidel take Cuba), only to find his dreams have been shattered by coup-after-coup from the mid 1960s onwards (usually involving the support and/or direct intervention of the CIA) as once-progressive governments have been cast aside and replaced by brutal fascist dictatorships (Pinochet in Chile, Galtieri in Argentia, etc).
politically chastened, Svitol returns home from his adventures and misadventures to find an italy that only hothouses his sense of disillusionment, politically disenfranchisement (many of his former compagni – comrades – are busy selling out or shooting up), and existential despair.

without giving too much away, there’s a poignant twist revealed at the end of the film, in that the one person who seems to understand Svitol’s sense of loss and existential crisis the most, and care about him and his predicament the most sincerely, ends up being (because of their opposing politics) the very person Svitol tries his hardest to push away from him at every opportunity throughout the film. at the end of the film, both these characters are left broken by the system that has failed them both.

i consider this film a must-see for all fans of italian film, especially those with an interest in the radical and counter-cultural politics of the period. it’s sad, it’s funny, it’s angry, it’s desperate, it’s witty and it’s inconsolable; ultimately a journey to a dead end, but a journey that teaches us much worth understanding.
primarily the tale of a good-but-troubled man trying to negotiate an existential crisis, it’s also a mood piece presenting fascinating insights into how dark the political, cultural and spiritual atmosphere of 1970s europe became. and a zeitgeist worth gaining an insight into at this point in european history, because it may be in the process of making a return.

reviewed by Olivia, with grateful thanks to Jon Rarefilmm for making this fine film available to all to appreciate.

ps. as a post-script, if anyone reading this review can point me in the direction of links for two other early 1980s Marco Tullio Giordana films, La caduta degli angeli ribelli (1981) and Notti e nebbie (1984), i would be most grateful for your suggestions.
despite the fact that Tullio Giordana’s more recent films have been celebrated by both public and critics in italy and abroad, his earliest films are still frustratingly difficult to source (this gem being a rare exception). and as all who visit this site will understand well, it’s not going to be the film industry that rights that wrong.