There are those who start their career as an actor and then end up in politics. A very long list, especially one: Ukrainian President Zelensky. And there are those who go the opposite way. The newcomer Pierluigi Bersani, protagonist of an 18-minute short film, has enthusiastically registered for this category. He will be a waiter, a priest, a horseman, he will play 7 roles, besides the one he has been playing for many years, better still. For someone who set out to eradicate the Jaguar’s stain, finding himself in the spotlight of a set is a strange fate. A bit like combing dolls’ hair – another exaggeration on his part – and spending the time he has left as a very long-serving MP.
But the flap will now change: Bersani will be the metaphor of himself: supermarket cashier, boccia player, testimonial on a consumer poster, greengrocer. Everything that could have been and what wasn’t. He has carved out many comedic professions so far apart and different from the roles he left behind: President of the Emilia-Romagna Region, founder and secretary of the Democratic Party, former Minister of Economic Development of the Prodi government.
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Someone who doesn’t want to take himself too seriously, Bersani. Who justified his senile vocation by saying that “irony is ultimately a tool for mental health,” an antidote “to loneliness.” He will play the role of the “poor guy” because after all he is also “the son of a mechanic” and “to get involved in politics you have to be normal”. But let’s be honest: Bersani isn’t that “normal”. If you think about his political path, about the elusive identity of some former communists, fanatics of belonging, blinded by orthodoxy. To show how much times have changed for the left, at the age of 72, the MP from Bettole (Piacenza) disguised himself as an extra to “tell the story of today’s Italy”. He gives in to the requests of his friend Andrea Satta, also an actor but above all a pediatrician, who treats a thousand children and will take on the role of the protagonist, a serial collector of “vouchers”.
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The title of the short film, set in Rome in August, is precisely “Coupon, the film of happiness”; the director is Agostino Ferrente; The cast also includes Milena Vukotic, 83 years old, a real actress who worked with Luis Bunuel, winner of a Silver Ribbon and three times nominated for the David di Donatello. However, Bersani still has a long way to go. But even before you’ve seen it in action – it will debut at the 41st Turin Film Festival on November 29th – something can be said. And the experiment seems to be quite successful.
Dressed as a butcher, with the priest’s clergyman busy in a bowling alley, the blonde wig, the mustache and the goatee, the 70s glasses, the vest peeking out from underneath or the half-mute rider saying a single line (” I “He almost ran over an SUV”), the former minister is quite credible. The common feature is this sometimes strict, sometimes more relaxed, but still human facial expression. Not quite the same as what you experience some days on the Transatlantic or on an argumentative talk show. You almost wonder if that wasn’t the first route you should take. But that’s another matter. And now it’s too late.