Word: primo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man opens on Primo (Ugo Tognazzi), a hard-working salt-of-the-earth type who has realized the capitalist dream in the form of his own cheese factory outside Parma in northern Italy. The first hint of conflict s straightforward and understandable enough: Primo's leftist-leaning only child Giovanni (Riki Tognazzi) presents him with a birthday gift of a flare-gun and binoculars, accompanied by a note deriding Primo's latest purchase, a yacht Visibly stung by the rebuke, Primo ascends to his factory's roof to survey his domain. In the distance he sees...
...ransom requests appear, brought by a previously unknown woman who identifies herself as "Giovanni's girl," the case grows more complex--as it should, but the plot, instead of thickening, becomes distressingly obtuse. Young workers approach Primo with furtive suggestions, their role as friends or captors remains unclear, not only to him but to the viewer as well The labyrinth never opens onto a clear space, and the ambiguities and doublecrosses are doubly frustrating because they are so obviously intentional. Too simplistic to captivate without a fitting denouement, the unsolved mystery fails equally much as a pure intellectual exercise...
Warm, human Primo provides the one bright spot in this flawed drama Best known to American audiences for his lead role in La Cage Aux Folles unshaven Ugo Tognazzi in baggy corduroys portrays Primo's working class origins as sensual and simple Primo imbodies an earthiness once quieter and more passionate than the mysteria of his aging but staff beautiful wife Barbara (Anoak Ainee...
...marrying this golden girl of leisure Primo has acheived the apex of a working-class dreams he is ripe to be cut down. Bertolucci humbles his but is unable to create a tragic hero out of him, for Primo learns nothing, having known all along that he is slightly ridiculous. From his vantage point at the film's outset--living in an expensive villa modeled after the local medieval fortress--he realizes fully that his social status is out of proportion with hsi real needs. Still, no matter how ludicrous his self-image of the little man thrust into power...
...movie's stronger elements fail too to counteract the weakness of characters and plot The camera with in The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man emerges as surprisingly playful as Carlo Di Palma's lens follows Primo's bicycle through a car windshield and later lingers on the ham-eating lips of the wealthy. The ideas, it seems, is to play with the viewer's perceptions of really, making him connection through cinematography of his own limited vision But where the plot should continue this theme and reinforce it, confusion wells up instead. Cancelling any possible effectiveness...