San Babila ore 20: Un delitto inutile

A film capturing the so-called "anni di piombo" ("Years of Lead"), the Italian period culminating in the 1970s, the golden years of political murders, terrorism, street wars of extremists, etc. It is a film that was released in Italy approximately six months after Pasolini was murdered in the fall of 1975. Regarding the "protagonists" (but not only them!) of this film, Pasolini wrote: "The children around us, especially the youth, the adolescents, are almost all monsters. Their physical appearance is almost terrifying, and when it's not terrifying, it's unpleasantly unhappy. Horrible leather clothing, caricature-like hairstyles, dull eyes. They are masks of some horrible barbaric initiation or diligent and ignorant integration, arousing no sympathy. (...) In the worst cases, they are real criminals. How many are there? In reality, it could be all of them. In groups of young people we encounter on the street, they could all be criminals. They have no light in their eyes, their features are imitations of robot features, without any trace of personal characteristics that would define them internally. Their silence could mean a timid request for help (but what help?) or a stabbing with a knife. (...) Regardless of higher education and improved living standards, they regress to the level of primitive rudeness. (...) They cannot laugh or smile. They can only sneer and grimace." (14.12.2013)

Genre-wise, San Babila-8 P.M. is a political pamphlet, which is not meant pejoratively. It is simply a more politically declarative film than a genre crime movie. However, it is clearly made professionally, with good performances and direction. Nevertheless, the political message of the film has been somewhat simplified. The film is based on the positions of the intellectual Italian left of the 70s, which stood against the establishment and had a relatively radical and traditional class vision. To some extent, this corresponds to the cultural conditions in Czechoslovakia in the 30s. In this conception, fascists logically had to come primarily from the circles of spoiled golden youth, although the social reality of neo-Nazism was already significantly different back then, with a lot of involvement from working-class youth. The dangerous far-right in Italy were radically conservative officers of the Italian army and secret services, or older gentlemen from financial and industrial circles, who nostalgically remembered Mussolini and sympathetically looked at Franco, Pinochet, and the black colonels in Greece. It was these individuals who were behind the liquidation of Aldo Moro. The film also has an interesting musical aspect. Overall impression: 70%. (14.04.2008)

Four bored Neo-Nazis hanging out in the streets of Milan and making a mess under the guise of their neo-fascist ideology. But it lacks a tighter plot, a more capable writer, and actually, it only gets interesting in the last ten minutes. A definite positive are the realities of the time, the film is an unintentional travelogue of the street life of Milan in the 1970s. It’s also interesting to see the social mood, when left-leaning Italy was verbally and physically cut between neo-fascists, recruited, according to the film, from young bored upper-class boys, and communists, who are represent mostly by students. But the overall impression is marred by some naive scenes (the whole line with the unbelievably naive and stupid girl), and Morricone's music is punishingly underused, almost inaudible in fact. (13.04.2016)