"Cesare deve morire" ("Caesar Must Die") is the latest movie from brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, experienced (both over 80 years old) Italian directors and screenwriters. In February 2012 it won the Golden Bear, the main prize of the Berlin International Film Festival, and a very strong reception from the audience which seems to continue. So what's it about? Some time ago a friend told the Taviani brothers about the great experience she had watching a play in a small theatre in Rome and so they went to visit it. They went there, loved the actors, and decided to film them creating another play, Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". All of that doesn't sound like something special but there's a catch. The theatre is in fact in Rebibbia, a high-security prison, and all of the actors are convicts sentenced for various crimes and to a various amount of time (some even for life). That's the most peculiar but also the most problematic thing about this movie.
The movie establishes three levels: one on the scene, the enacting of play, and two in the prison, prisoners as what should be their normal selves talking about the play and in their roles rehearsing for the play. The interesting thing is that on all of the levels the movie feels scripted. The moments of rehearsing are, with the help of camera work, editing and music, made to look like they are parts of play itself, whilst the situations when the prisoners are out of character see them still acting ,thus ironically making the actual play on the stage the only nonfictional part of the movie. As you can imagine, it all leaves you a little confused. Of course, it's questionable if the directors even wanted to create everything in that way. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. But "Cesare deve morire" obviously tackles the theme of the theater-reality relationship and the fact that it's a movie undeniably adds to the equation.
What the Taviani brothers pointed as their main intention in doing this movie is drawing the viewers' attention to the human side of the prisoners, and I'm not sure if they succeeded in that. That they in fact worked with amateur actors didn't help. As I've already said, the prisoners seem to act all the time thus denying us any real emotion and depriving us of any empathy. What we can assume is the usefulness of creating the prison theatre group. Both as a useful way for convicts to spend their time and as means to enable their interaction with the outside world. Bearing that in mind, the movie becomes useful as a sort of advertisement reaching to a broader audience.
Being the advertisement of course isn't enough to be a good movie, however good the cause it advertises may be. Fortunately, there are a few more good things about it. Most of the movie is shot in black and white and the cinematography, done by Simone Zampagni, is beautiful. The use of the camera transforms prison cells to Roman houses and makes simple courtyards become the Senate and the grand Forum of the Eternal City. It successfully embodies "less is more" principle. The music composed by Giuliano Taviani and Carmelo Travia in the beginning feels mismatched, but when you recognize the rehearsals as the play and the other levels accordingly it clicks in emphasizing the pathos of the tragedy.
"Cesare deve morire" isn't a movie without its charms. I just feel like the directors didn't successfully accomplish what they were trying to, even if in the process they created something interesting (deliberately or not). That said, it puzzles me why it got the Golden Bear and I can't wait to see some of the other movies from the competition.
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