There is something confounding about his film, which seems to both satirize the underlying weakness and depraved things people do to one another when under the sway of fascist strongmen, as well as walk along the edge of supporting regressive, misogynistic ideas.
It's clear we're not meant to admire the protagonist (Giancarlo Giannini), at least completely or even for the most part. He's a self-inflated, apolitical dandy about Naples before the war who turns a blind eye to the rise of Il Duce, bungles a killing to preserve his family's honor, and ends up in a mental hospital instead of on death row only because strings are pulled for him. During the war he deserts, is captured and put into a concentration camp, and then does some horrible things to survive. He's an oaf of an everyman and a sniveling coward, but then again, he's also a survivor, and may represent the trauma and guilt Italians felt after the war, thus becoming sympathetic.
The film also bestows upon this character the ability to seduce women, kind of like a secret power he can wield in the most unlikely of places, like to a doctor in the mental hospital and the commandant at the concentration camp. Masculinity is a thread running through the film, and unfortunately it's sometimes of the toxic variety, and the film seems to support this as a survival skill.
Before the war, to the adoring eyes of young and old, he threatens to beat his sisters if they dare to not lower their eyes passing men on the streets, lest they be considered tarts, and fondles the butts of each woman in a row of workers. When the eldest sister accepts gifts and wants to become a scantily clad burlesque dancer, believing the promises of marriage from a rogue, he vows an honor killing. After he botches things, an older man tells him how a "real man" would have handled it, planning ahead by bringing an extra gun, but barring that, about the Naples trademark ways of getting rid of the bodies, citing the examples of cement shoes, stuffing the dead body as an extra one in a large coffin, or adding skeletons to the Fontanelle cemetery, the site in Naples with lots of skulls and bones where they wouldn't be noticed.
In the mental hospital he commits a brutal rape of a strapped down patient, and despite his subsequent punishment, it seemed as though we were expected to understand when he tried to explain to his victim that he hadn't had a woman in seven months. This was a very tough scene to stomach.
In the concentration camp, it was also very unsettling when he contrasted his plan for action, to seduce the female warden, with the inaction of Jewish and Russian prisoners, wondering of the former about how they could have ended up in such a predicament because they're "smart," and of the latter, how it could be because they're "brave," as evidenced by their Revolution, and that the film didn't call him on this.
When he's then forced to have sex with the commandant but struggles to attain an erection, praying "Dear God, help me to get it up," and fantasizing about memories from the past and even Bronzino's painting "An Allegory with Venus and Cupid" to help him find "inspiration," you can't find a clearer indication of the sense of needing to "be a man."
But what does it mean to be a man? I think we see the best answer in the supporting characters, who rely on intelligence and principals instead of their smooth skills with women, which is when the film was at its best. One is a socialist who bravely stood up to the rise of fascism, and is sentenced to 28 years in prison as a result. While the protagonist is capable of aping Mussolini for laughs, we see his real views when he says "I think Il Duce is pretty great. To be truthful, he's given us roads. He's given us so much, an entire empire. All the other countries are jealous of our leader." Unlike many of the other places in the film, it's clear we're not meant to sympathize at all with him here, and the other man then replies:
"There has been law and order, and he's done it by outlawing unions and strikes. The result is that salaries in 1919 were up and today people are making less than half, while the cost of living has increased 30%. ... The Italians are a bunch of fools, listening to that bag of air on his balcony."
There is also the man on the run with him after they've deserted the army, who makes the point that Italians were complicit for having supported Mussolini, and anyone is complicit for not standing up to evil when it's happening in the world. Lastly, there is that wonderful fellow inmate who takes the long view, telling him that with eventual overpopulation in the world, people will eventually kill for basic food, conditions as bad or worse than the concentration camp, and that out of that hell a "new man" must be born, one that lives in harmony with the world and each other.
It's telling what happens to each of these three other men, who have more enlightened views than the protagonist; each of them suffer to a greater degree or perish. That makes for a pretty somber statement on the way of the world. Meanwhile, the protagonist survives, is happy that the young girl he had his eye on survived (by becoming a prostitute, which he no longer minds), and plans on having a big, strong family, knowing that more wars (or anarchy) will certainly come and that he wants to have strength around him. It's not really clear he's learned the right lessons at all here, and if the film has through this dark conclusion, it's not very direct about showing it either.
Overall I found this to be a unique film and it certainly made me think. The mix of comedy elements and making the main character sympathetic hurt the effect that I thought (or perhaps wished) Lina Wertmüller was going for, in her somewhat irreverent way. On the other hand, the film cautions against fascism and touches on the reasons it rises: apathy, fear, and cowardice, which is certainly still relevant today, and made pitch black observations about human nature. Worth seeing.
