BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

philosopherjack Marco Bellocchio's Slap the Monster on Page One certainly reflects a particular time and place, seeped in the self-satisfied calculations of the monied Italian establishment, but it resonates bleakly in our time of heightened political cynicism and authoritarianism and of systematic disregard for truth. Gian Maria Volonte's Bizanti is the editor-in-chief of a prominent newspaper, leading its self-portrayal as a societal bulwark against violent leftist forces. When a young well-connected woman is brutally murdered, the paper seizes on the story in the way media always does, as a flagrant circulation booster and, when a likely suspect emerges, as particularly potent evidence of the degradation of the left. But the reporter on the story becomes aware that the trail is all too well-lit and the conclusion is too convenient a contribution to the narrative of a looming election; his reward for his awakening is to get fired. The film's subtlety lies in how Bizanti isn't at all oblivious to his personal corruption and culpability: on the contrary, he exults in it, seeing himself as the operator of an elaborate machine contributing to keep the worker suitably and obediently incentivized, and at the same time implicitly assuming that the worker understands and accepts his subjection to this calculated narcotic. Anyone who can't perceive (and it seems even appreciate, as one does a work of art) the workings of this system is merely a contemptible moron - including his wife, as he expresses in a memorably cruel outburst. In the end the truth is placed safely in storage, although with an understanding that it may be allowed to emerge in the future depending on the outcome of the election; the film ends on images of the Catholic church (by then degraded by an earlier deranged juxtaposition of the dead girl with the Virgin Mary) and then - amusingly if not subtly - on a river of garbage. Concise, dark and potent, the film might still be capable of inciting outrage, at least for a viewer still in possession of any sense of societal optimism.

JasparLamarCrabb Marco Bellocchio's indictment of the press as an opinion-making machine that turns the public into sheep is a bit in-your-face, but it's also a well thought out and well put together thriller. In Milan, when a young girl is found murdered, a highly regarded newspaper blames a trouble-making radical and whips the public and the police into a frenzy. The paper's editor-in-chief (Gian Maria Volonté) assigns idealistic cub reporter Fabio Garriba to cover the story. Garriba soon realizes that he too is being manipulated by Volonté. It's a brutal and frank movie that makes it clear that the established press is the enemy, fabricating stories, printing half truths and innuendo over facts. Volonté, well-known for his left-wing leanings in real life, is great in a role that has him representing the establishment as both impeccable and oily at the same time. He dons three piece suits, dines with the bourgeois and comes across as a pillar of respectability when in fact he is a lying bastard. Laura Betti gives a brilliant performance as a pathetic would-be radical cut down to size by Volonté. The music is by Nicola Piovani and Ennio Morricone.

christopher-underwood Really good, solid, political film making from a new fave of mine, Marco Belloccio. Indeed this taut thriller mixes the murky world of newspapers with the equally murky world of politics. This opens with in your face real footage of early 70s street riots in Milan. Such is the ferocity and spectacle it seems likely that once the narrative begins there will be an anti-climatic lull. Not at all, Gian Maria Volonte stars as the newspaper boss prepared to do anything for his fascist friends and the survival of his newspaper. His cynicism and by implication that of the director knows no bounds. An innocent schoolgirl is raped, there is a clear guilty party but does it suit the ends of those in charge for matters to proceed as they should? Volonte is masterly in the role, as he was in the slightly earlier, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion but he is aided here by more than adequate support from all involved. Thrilling, disturbing and very provocative.

MARIO GAUCI Considering the sheer amount of (vaguely boring) movies flaunting their individual creator's extreme left-wing politics to emerge from Europe throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it is hard in hindsight to believe just how many talented film-makers were 'duped' into upholding such naïve ideals; that said, the other side of the coin – basically equating Fascism – was even less comforting and that more dangerous…but it does make for rather intriguing (and ultimately more rewarding) cinema! Bellocchio's film, then, was one of a handful of titles to look at this alternative 'option': perhaps the most famous such example was Elio Petri's Oscar-winning INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (1970), which shares with the picture under review its leading man – Gian Maria Volonte'; like that one and Dino Risi's similarly excellent IN NOME DEL POPOLO ITALIANO (1971), the film takes the form of a thriller – both this and the latter, in fact, involve the investigation into the rape and murder of a teenager emanating from high society: here, a radical is accused of the crime – and hounded by Volonte''s opportunistic newspaper for it – but the guilty party turns out to be somebody else, ferreted by a reporter not taken in by his superior's wiles, who is pursued in turn (and even blackmailed!) by the unscrupulous editor. The movie paints a most cynical image of the press, beginning with Volonte' 'embellishing' – and directing his underlings to shoot – a fire that broke out at the office during a riot (he is seen making intermittent contact throughout with the politically-affiliated young owner of the paper, played by "Euro-Cult" stalwart John Steiner); later on, while viewing the TV broadcast of a talk-show he was involved in, the man even takes it upon his wife – for her passivity and intellectual limitations!; however, the worst victim of his dishonesty is the uncouth schoolteacher (Laura Betti) he befriended in order to exploit for her affair with the murder suspect – one of the film's best sequences is the one where she is made to confront her lover's fellow activists in the police station. The film features a good Morricone-esquire score by Nicola Piovani and ends on a shot depicting the rampant pollution at the city limits – a metaphor for the so-called "yellow press" and remarkably similar to the finale of yet another newspaper movie, the classic FIVE STAR FINAL (1931).