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| Director Paolo Sorrentino |
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| Sorrentino with actor Toni Servillo |
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| Toni Servillo on the set with Anna Ferzetti |
LA GRAZIA (The Pardon) A- aka: Grace Italy (133 mi) 2025 d: Paolo Sorrentino
The opening film of the 2025 Venice Film Festival, told through a series of beautifully orchestrated expressionistic scenarios, where this is a different kind of Sorrentino film, though in the same vein as Il Divo (Il divo: La spettacolare vita di Giulio Andreotti) (2008), which offered an extraordinarily sinister portrait of Giulio Andreotti, an uncharismatic Italian political mastermind who served in the Italian General Assembly for over forty years, appointed Senator for life, becoming strangely mixed up with mafia murders as the film traces several decades of Italian history. In addition, Sorrentino examined the marriage and corrupt political life of billionaire media mogul and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in LORO (2018). While those were based on actual history, this is a fictionalized portrayal of a more benevolent Italian President who is at the end of his term, where he’s coming to grips with his own political reality coming to a close, while also delving into his own existential realities of aging and fading out of public view. In both films, the connecting tissue is the brilliance of actor Toni Servillo (their seventh collaboration), who has been with the director since ONE MAN UP (2001), though he broke onto the international stage in THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE (2004), still one of the director’s most riveting films. There are subtle differences in this film from his others, as Sorrentino appears to be evolving, yet what distinguishes this film is the contemplative and ethical aspect of it, as it’s not some super-charged political drama, and instead refuses to follow a narrative storyline, per se, but instead consists of extremely personal moments, offering meditative reflections on mortality, aging, and the elusive nature of grace. Deeply philosophical yet humane at the same time, shot by longtime cinematographer Daria D’Antonio, the film is full of humorous asides and contradictions, pitting the folly of youth against the maturity of experience, yet at heart this is one of Sorrentino’s more profoundly moving films, and may be the most elegantly restrained, yet emotionally compelling film of his career. Literally making films like no one else, Sorrentino takes ponderous questions that could be cumbersome and heavy, yet he makes them matter, and turns them into moments that are lighter than air, accompanied by a carefully chosen musical soundtrack that pulses with electro-pop (La Grazia Soundtrack) in what amounts to inspiring, elegantly constructed cinematic poems that are the heartbeat of this film, where it’s always amusing to find someone older and reserved trying to connect with youthfully rebellious music, though it may be an attempt to get closer to the sensibilities of their children. In Sorrentino cinema, truth exists underneath an ornate surface, exploring modern existence with a uniquely extravagant yet introspective aesthetic, using painterly compositions, flowing camerawork, and a deliberately baroque approach, routinely shifting his focus from the extraordinary realms of power to mundane memories of his long-deceased wife, who is a ghostly presence that continually hovers around him, haunting him with her unknowability, leaving him spiritually empty, yet he remains devoted to her. While this may definitely appeal more to an older audience, as it depicts someone coming to terms with his own mortality, resembling at times the minimalist religious austerity of Bresson, yet Sorrentino has created something that is deeply affecting, perhaps more than any of his other films, which tend to rely upon a staggering grandiosity of opulent imagery, while this one seeks to read between the lines, creating a morality tale pondering unanswered ethical questions, connecting on a human level, offering wisdom beyond its years. While the Prime Minister may hold most of the power, the constitutional duties of the President are the fixing of elections and referendums, while he is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces, issues ordinances, and can pardon. Summing up his time in office, “We were not clever. We were elegant.”
A man of power who is at the absolute summit of governmental authority, the film may as well be an ode to Italy, with a red, green, and white filter of the Italian flag used in one scene, also painted contrails left by a squadron of fighter jets in another, using a fictitious leader to examine the principles by which we live, as we look at the life and inner torments of Mariano De Santis (Toni Servillo), mirroring in some ways Sergio Mattarella, the longest-serving President of the Republic, who granted clemency to a man who killed his wife who was afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. A widower, Catholic, and legal jurist who embodies the law, he has a grown daughter, Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti), his chief advisor, a legal scholar like himself, and the one closest who understands him in ways no one else does, yet she has the impression of never being able to fully understand him, and while she passionately expresses her own opinions, her father has the final word on all matters of the state. As his term draws to a close, two final duties arise, deciding the fate on two requests for a presidential pardon by individuals who murdered their partners under mitigating circumstances, a professor who strangled his Alzheimer-afflicted wife, and a woman who stabbed her husband after 15 years of abuse, and whether to sign a bill into law legalizing euthanasia, a bill his daughter supports on ethical grounds, but the Pope does not. Either way, it’s political dynamite in such a Catholic country, as “If I don’t sign I’m a torturer and if I sign I’m a murderer.” True moral dilemmas, they become tangled in ways that seem impossible to unravel from his private life, driven by doubt, contemplating his role with a deep sense of responsibility, LA GRAZIA | Official Clip | Only in Theaters December YouTube (1:34). Perhaps defined by indecision and its paralyzing effects, as he tries to think through every possible consequence and legal implication, the question of whether or not to put a dying horse out of its misery helps him understand the legal meaning of the word “agony,” an integral component of unbearable or needless suffering when evaluating euthanasia. In this film, the Pope is an African (Rufin Doh Zeyenouin) who wears dreadlocks and an earring while riding a scooter, a longtime friend of Mariano, offering advice and counsel on matters of the spirit, suggesting God gives us questions to grapple with, not answers, with Sorrentino humanizing them both, placing neither one on a pedestal, feeling recognizable and more down to earth than we might expect. One of the many surprises is the absence of crowds, as he often appears alone, even on the busy streets, where few people are seen, seemingly taking place in a vacuum, or an idealized world, completely free from the divisive, self-aggrandizing rhetoric of today’s politics, filled with pathologically narcissistic attacks, instead zeroing in on a man who wanders through the halls of power, sealed off from the outside world, like a self-contained mausoleum, yet sound cues of EDM musical riffs mystifyingly echo through the palatial chambers, KI/KI - 5 Mins Of Acid (Official Music Video) YouTube (5:00), like inescapable thoughts racing through his mind and following him wherever he goes, which lightens the otherwise serious tone. This elderly and austere President, disparagingly referred to as “reinforced concrete” for his intractable nature and stoic exercise in caution, is above all a man full of contradictions, repeatedly describing himself as “the most uninteresting subject I know,” often reduced to ceremonial responsibilities or puff piece interviews, yet it’s wild to think that Mariano loves to listen to rap music on his headphones, Le Bimbe Piangono YouTube (3:45) by Guè Pequeno (who plays himself in a cameo), seen reciting the lyrics in the lavish halls of the Palazzo del Quirinale while a palace guard curiously looks on, just one of the many idiosyncratic, humorous touches. Essentially a love story between a man and his wife, but also his reverence for a life spent between laws and institutions, while still paying attention to small and trivial things, such as the frugal dinners imposed by Dorotea, a song listened to obsessively, or his friendly relationship with his trusted Corazziere Labaro (Orlando Cinque), who is part of the Presidential entourage.
While Mariano remains deeply affected by the loss of his wife eight years ago, he is tormented by the idea that she was having an affair with someone else forty years ago, yet that doesn’t prevent him from carrying on conversations with her in the form of inner narrations, where she is still vibrantly alive to him, continually thinking of her, still the most important person in his life, though he finds a distraction in a flirtation with Lithuania’s female ambassador (Alexandra Gottschlich), taking great pleasure in watching the way she walks. Another childhood friend, who just happened to be his wife’s best friend, is Coco Valori (Milvia Marigliano), a quick-witted, irrepressible, giant-spectacled art critic who speaks her mind while having the ear of Mariano, his complete opposite, as she’s much more boldly risqué, with her acid-tongued remarks, fashion extravagance, and wild hair, while he carefully ruminates over every decision he makes. “Bureaucracy is meant to be slow. That’s the point: to give people time to reflect,” he explains. In what is easily the most energized and youth-oriented sequence of the film, an exhilarating dance troupe video is watched, created by American choreographer and dancer Martha Nichols, showing balletic grace and rhythmic fluidity, an example of the supreme power of the arts, "Surf Rider" | Martha Nichols | CY4 Black Box Films YouTube (3:27). Both Dorotea in one instance and Mariano in another, visit prisons to question the validity of the pardon requests, asking sobering questions of the prisoners, moments when power has the flexibility to make exceptions, but only if deserved. Outside the prison, Mariano chats with one of his generals (Giuseppe Gaiani), La Grazia | Exclusive Clip YouTube (1:43), which gives him an excuse to smoke his one allotted cigarette per day, a vow he constantly disregards, as he does the restricted diet Dorotea imposes on her father, which he gratefully appreciates, but he’s not easily persuaded. There’s a chilling sequence when Mariano and the general attend a veterans’ dinner for Italy’s highly regarded band of mountain infantry, the Alpini, and spontaneously breaks out into a patriotic song with them, with the colors of the flag filtered over the screen image. A central question posed to the President by his daughter becomes a driving theme of the film, as he is asked, “Who owns our days?” While it may seem obvious, it’s part of the existential premise of seeking meaning in his final few months in office, while also searching for the elusive understanding of his own existence. What is grace, by the way? To that, the Pope inquires, “Have you ever been light?” It may seem like a strange question, but the way Sorrentino addresses it is positively scintillating, as there is an Italian astronaut floating gravity-free on the International Space Station, with Mariano intently watching him at one point, finding himself utterly transfixed by the weightless man capturing his own teardrop as it floats away from him, a precious moment that may as well be a cinematic marvel. But after pondering such grave questions while in office, the idea of being “light” is especially intriguing for him, unleashing a flood of memories. With a performance that registers with emotional resonance, Mariano is linked to a Zoom call of Dorotea visiting her musician brother in Montreal, one of the things Mariano realizes is that children look up to their parents, but as one ages, the parents begin following their children. This is a life cycle film, paying particular attention to the end stage, with a filmmaker who likes to present us with works of art that last forever, returning to Rome after making two films in Naples, where this is less about politics and more about the human condition, as these are deeper reflections, where there’s always an element of uncertainty, and may be Sorrentino’s answer to the ambiguous moral conundrums in Kieślowski’s The Decalogue (Dekalog) (1989).
