Since it debuted a few months ago at the Cannes festival, I’ve been following the clue of ‘Outside night’ (Esterno notte), the Italian miniseries (also in film version) by marco bellocchio (‘The traitor’) that Filmin released this past Tuesday. In six episodes, the Italian filmmaker delves into the kidnapping and murder of prominent politician Aldo Moro in 1978.
It is not the first time, in fact, that Bellocchio recounts these convulsive days of the spring of 1978. He already did so in ‘Good morning, night’ (Buongiorno Notte) through the story of Chiara, a terrorist from the Red Brigades And now, almost twenty years later, he is once again fully immersed in a case that seems to obsess him, and he expands his thesis on it.
Taking advantage of the episodic format (lately few remember this advantage in television) the scriptwriter and director places, piece by piece, the puzzle of the Aldo Moro case (Fabrizio Gifuni). The first episode introduces us to the politician, president of Christian Democracy and we witness his kidnapping when he was going to the investiture session of a historic and controversial government.
A story through the key characters
The following episodes take us through the key figures of history and their respective points of view: Minister Cossiga (Fausto Russo Alesi); Pope Paul VI (Toni Servillo), Adriana (Daniela Marra), one of the members of the Red Brigades, Moro’s desperate wife (Margherita Buy) and, finally, a recreation of the last moments of the politician.
all these pieces they take us back and forth throughout those two months of political convulsion (not to say collapse) that are observed and narrated with vehemence and enough perspective when it comes to exposing and portraying without getting muddy the entire ideological and political cocktail that overflowed those days. Which are elements that cannot be ignored when addressing the case.
This leaves us with a fascinating x-ray not only of the Moro case, but also the sociopolitical climate of Italy at the time. In this sense, the first episode begins strongly by portraying both the riots of the Red Brigades and the tensions in those days prior to a controversial government investiture.
While he is generous in showing these tensions and other characteristics and actions of the protagonists, Bellocchio opts for a sober but powerful, captivating aesthetic. Both in the purely photographic and in the interpretive, with some exquisite performances.
In short, ‘Exterior noche’ is easy to break the tops of the best series of 2022 at the last minute (in fact, I have to update things as well) having arrived in our country at such a “last minute”. It is a political drama excellent historical from beginning to end that immerses us in a fascinating way in a few turbulent days.