Rome With a View

And to think I almost watched The Thing again.

Last week I stood at a video crossroads as I tried to decide what movie I should watch for my evening’s entertainment.

On one hand, I had The Thing from Another World, one of my very favorite science fiction movies that I’ve seen and thoroughly enjoyed God alone knows how many times.

On the other hand, there was A Special Day, an Italian film that had gotten good reviews, but which I had never seen before.

I knew The Thing would deliver the goods, but the other flick was a total mystery. It might by great or it might suck beyond all description.

The only way to find out was to press “play.”

I finally decided to step out of my comfort zone and watch A Special Day and I am so glad because I have not enjoyed a movie so much in ages.

Released in 1977, A Special Day was directed by Ettore Scola and stars the two cinema legends Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni as neighbors in an apartment building in Rome who meet and bond on May 6, 1938—the day Adolph Hitler came to Italy.

Loren plays Antonietta, the mother of six spoiled children, who is married to a womanizing lout, while Mastroianni plays Gabriele, a radio broadcaster who has been fired from his job for being gay.

Both are left alone while just about everyone else in the apartment building—and the city—go off to see Hitler’s meeting with Italy’s fascist prime minister Benito Mussolini.

The film begins with newsreel footage of Hitler arriving it Italy by train and being greeted by thousands of people—these scenes are scarier than anything in The Thing because the monsters here were real.

The story takes in an around Gabriele’s apartment and Scola uses his camera brilliantly to capture the characters’ stifling confinement.

Early on in the film, Gabriele tries to teach Antonietta the rumba, but the builder’s caretaker, a miserable old fascist hag, cranks up her radio so loudly that the news coverage of Hitler’s visit echoes throughout the whole complex.

'Fascism is Anti-me'

“You can’t do the rumba to that,” Gabriele says.

The radio voice almost becomes a character, hanging over the scenes and reminding us of the world that is coming, when people will be goose-stepping instead of dancing.

I was getting this feeling of déjà vu and I realized that I had a similar experience nine years ago when I finally got around to watching a beautiful Japanese film called Still Walking.

Both films tell emotionally-wrenching stories that take place over the course of one day. Both had sat at the bottom of my DVR list unwatched for years and both turned out to be fabulous.

Back then I was stuck in my house due to a bad back and Hurricane Sandy. This time I was stuck in my house because of Covid-19.

Gabrielle and Antonietta are trapped as well, imprisoned by the plague of fascism that will soon erupt into World War II.

And we have yet to find a cure for this awful disease, as the events of January 6 at the Capitol Building so clearly and painfully demonstrated.

Gabriele’s character was inspired by Nunzio Filogamo, an Italian radio personality who was persecuted by Mussolini’s government for being gay, but, unlike Gabrielle, he was so popular that they couldn’t fire or deport him.

Instead they made him carry a medical card stating he was not a homosexual.

Filogamo, I’m happy to say, outlasted the fascist regime, passing away at the ripe old age of 99 years old, long after Il Duce had been summarily shot and strung up by his heels.

At the end of the film, all the residents return to the apartment building and Antonietta’s husband declares that he wants to have a 7th child, a son that he'll name Adolfo.

I still have The Thing on my DVR and I will get around to watching it, yet again. But I am so happy that I took a small step into the unknown and had a most special night.