Streetwise Italian performers inmates in a maximum-security prison
revive the passions of ancient Rome when they mount a production of
Julius Caesar under the guidance of a benevolent director. In this blend
of documentary and fiction, the Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio,
implant theatrical artifice in a rigidly controlled environment,
revealing as much about the spectacle’s participants as about
Shakespeare’s play. From the prisoners’ auditions (in which they are
asked to declare their name and civil status with varied inflections) to
their terrifying return to their cells under the watchful eyes of
guards, the actors many of whom are jailed for acts of violence both
endure and reflect the implacable force of crime and punishment.
The
play’s conflicting demands of power and friendship and its air of menace
come through with an eerie gravity, and contemporary Italian diction
(featuring the actors speaking in their regional accents and dialects)
lends ancient history a jolting currency. The movie’s predominant
black-and-white palette pares the action to its starkest outlines, and a
few color sequences reconnect the prison, and the prisoners, to the
surrounding world.
