Cinema Italiano 2024: Aprile

The charm of Aprile is that it remains unflinchingly silly, and
laugh-out-loud funny. Director Nanni Moretti smuggles in
clever personal, political and philosophical ideas without any
pretence of seriousness.

The backdrop to the story is the birth of Moretti’s own child, coinciding with the election of the notorious Silvio Berlusconi. Again, he plays a version of himself, a filmmaker constantly distracted by his son's impending birth and perturbed by Italy’s turn towards a new political movement now described as ‘Populism’. It’s a perfect mix of the personal with the philosophical.

Anyone old enough to have lived through the 90’s will find it
fascinating to see how our present was so shaped by those years. Moretti’s mix of absurd humour, slapstick, autobiography and poignancy, make Nanni Moretti a genuine ‘Auteur’ like no other living Italian Director.