It is not entirely true that we Italians are not capable of writing “detective stories” and there are many famous exceptions to confirm this: Scerbananco, Carofiglio, Faletti, De Cataldo, Carrisi. Limit case Camilleri with his Montalbano, where the validity of the plots could also slip into the background with respect to the personalities of the various characters.
A very pleasant case apart is Alessandro Robecchi, brilliant author who in a few years has conquered a large number of readers, who have been taken by his plots, always well thought out, set in a meticulously described and never banal Milan, and by his characters , a small group that has defined itself through eight novels, leaving each reader the pleasure of choosing their favorite one.
The protagonist (except in I circles in the water, the penultimate) is Carlo Monterossi, a very well written character on paper, a successful man, afflicted by a vein of melancholy spleen, disillusioned with a life that nevertheless gave him success , fame, money. He carefully observes a society whose deterioration he sees clearly and every now and then he likes to think that a little justice should be done.
Carlo is a Bob Dylan enthusiast, basically a great romantic, a Philip Marlowe in spite of himself, and while he looks with amused bitterness at the collapse of today’s society, he makes us find accomplices in many of his reflections, in his hilarious sociological analyzes, always precise. . In the novels he is surrounded by some characters who over time have become protagonists of the pages dedicated to them from supporting actors.
It was all a whole that clearly lent itself to a transposition on small or large screen, but the attention towards the choice of the various interpreters had to be very high, in order not to upset the aficionados. Who here will not be satisfied with the choice of Fabrizio Bentivoglio, an actor who over the years has accommodated himself on a characterization that constantly leads him to “cover” the various characters that are entrusted to him (a bit of the Abatantuono case) and who is very far away here from the Monterossi described in the novels, older by birth, a little mixed up, more clumsy than the original.
But if the cut given to the main character is wrong, the same mistake was made with the others, it is not clear why to rejuvenate one (the legendary Sov. Ghezzi, entrusted to Diego Ribon) and age another (the tough Carella, who is Tommaso Ragno), thus upsetting the mechanics that guide them in the execution of their job (they are two of the policemen with whom Monterossi interacts most often), which they will end up carrying out with methods that are not always linear. But always in the name of that superior good that will unite them to the civil “bourgeois” that fate has thrown in their path (or vice versa). Even the side characters become just plain colorless figurines (often entrusted to less than excellent actors).
The plots remain, almost simple in the lack of hyperbolic American-style details, yet with intricate solutions, as they were in the novels. In the first episodes, in the role of a snobbish killer, appears Maurizio Lombardi, who is entrusted with one of the few characters a little over the top in the narrative. Because otherwise they are almost normal people, eccentric at times, a little borderline (there are also some ruthless gypsies, but not by chance), all with common lives and common motives, whether they are good or bad. A bit ‘the normality of evil, in short. Carla Signoris plays Flora, the Diva of the talk written by Carlo and hated so much by him, modeled on Barbara D’Urso, all in all the most successful choice of the cast.
As for the direction, especially in the first three episodes, he makes a “stylish” use of editing, with a useless time inversion on some occasions. The series is set in the usual Milan to drink of the new millennium, but less blatant than usual (lately the films shot in Milan seem like tourist spots). Here, in six episodes, two novels are retraced, This is not a love song and Di rabbia e di vento. No expense was spared for the rights to Bob Dylan’s songs, which often echo.
The choice of actors, the consequent distortion of the peculiar characteristics of the characters, cause a suffering equal to what one might feel seeing a remake of Gone with the Wind with a series of all wrong faces and the faithful reader of the novels will take it personally, as a crime of treason.
But be careful, we have said many times that a book is a book and a TV series (or a film) is a TV series and that therefore the passionate reader constitutes a very difficult audience (think of the many fans of comics or video games, always insatiable) . Here, however, even if you look at the series ignoring all of the original novels, what is striking would be the chronic lack of rhythm that deprives the bite of the progress of the story, a feeling that is very often felt when viewing our local products, whether they are comedies, dramas or thriller, as if it were an endemic problem of our television direction.
But illustrious precedents are there to disprove us, from Criminal Novel and Gomorrah, and therefore the problem lies elsewhere perhaps in the direction of Johnson, who had done better with the series I delitti del Barlume, or in the screenplay (which also appears to have Robecchi himself put his hand). But in many films we have heard that when the rights to a book are sold, it is better to stop thinking about it and let our creature go around the world alone, in a new, even different, guise. But in this case, after having brought her up so well with novels, seeing her go around so a little tightens the heart.
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