It turns out there’s something even more dystopian than a post-apocalyptic hellscape, and that’s a story about societal collapse in a world that hasn’t even ended yet. It’s a place that resembles the present in so many facets that you have to pay close attention to even realize that events are unfolding in a terrifying future that may only be a year or two away, and it won’t require a nuclear holocaust to get us there, just the slow crumble of social and environmental decay. Mondocane, a fascinating if flawed thriller from writer/director Alessandro Celli, gives us a glimpse of such a time and place where the beauty of youth and friendship is ground up in the gears of lawless savagery that isn’t very different from what might be going on in the streets of your city right now. It’s gang warfare in the twilight of civilization, a tale as old as time.
At the center of Celli’s story, written with Antonio Leotti, we find a pair of young teenage boys who seem happy to swim in the sea and stroll aimlessly along the beach searching for curiosities. Right from the beginning, Giuseppe Maio’s lush cinematography sets a tone that casts into relief the bleakness of these characters’ lives. Pietro (Dennis Protopapa) and Cristian (Giuliano Soprano) are orphans living with an abusive bastard of an old fisherman who exploits them for labor and harangues them like a guilt-tripping grandmother. Our first clue that this isn’t today’s world is the fact that neither of the boys seems to know what to make of the large crucifix they haul out of the water. It’s a sign that Italy’s bedrock institutions have already crumbled beyond recognition.
When a local motorcycle gang known as the Ants enlists Pietro to burn down a pet store (“Mondocane” translates from the Italian as “Dog World”), he’s as happy as if he just got accepted into college. He does the deed, gaining his nickname and acceptance with the Ants, but they refuse to take Cristian because he’s known to suffer from epileptic seizures; “Pisspants,” they call him. The gang is led by a charismatic tough guy known as Hothead (Alessandro Borghi) who gathers his handpicked orphans around him like a twisted youth pastor, caressing their heads and doling out affection that doesn’t hide the menace in his nature. In fact, there’s a lot of touching and feeling among these characters, who pat each other’s bare chests and touch one another’s faces in moments of both camaraderie and conflict. The familial bond between the lost children of the Ants is a palpable thing, made all the more poignant by the realization that society has left them behind, along with almost everyone else.
It’s a strength of the screenplay that the specifics of this dystopian setting are never explained but rather implied through establishing shots and the slightly future-forward design of the cars and gadgets we glimpse. Set in the ruins of Taranto on the coast of the Ionian Sea, the world of Mondocane is one of ecological catastrophe, forbidden zones and stark inequality. While most scenes take place within this abandoned urban and industrial wasteland, a parallel storyline unfolds in the more recognizable world of New Taranto with its school buses, local shops and beach resorts where Pietro and Cristian sneak away to pickpocket and spend their booty on meals of spaghetti and beer. Here they encounter a schoolgirl their age, Sabrina (Ludovica Nasti), who is fascinated by the pair of hoodlums. Sabrina’s story is an underdeveloped filigree wrapped around Pietro’s arc of discontent with the gangster life. They share a prior connection which is never shown, and their mutual attraction registers as less magnetic than the bond that Pietro shares with Cristian. Instead, Sabrina is taken under the wing of a policewoman (Barbara Ronchi) who seems to want to help the stray children of the industrial wasteland but lacks the power to do anything about it.
The world-building and character dynamics make for an evocative setup, and it’s clear that outcomes look bleak for everyone involved. Unfortunately, the final act takes a turn towards cliché with a climactic sequence that feels culled from a generic action thriller of the 1980s. Characters hunting each other inside the skeletal innards of a steel mill might have once packed an ironic punch—we’re all just cogs in an unfeeling machine, man!—but it feels like a failure of imagination in a film as richly layered as this one. In the world of Mondocane, the unfeeling machine has long since taken over, and not even the bonds of friendship and family are strong enough to save us. It might be comforting to think of this story as a future dystopia, but look a little closer and you realize: we’re already there.
Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber
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