God Laughs

There was a bit of a groan among Italian film critics as God Laughs was revealed to be the closing event of the 83rd Venice Film Festival, owing to the less than stellar reputation director Giovanni Veronesi enjoys for his comedies (most recently, two installments of a Three Musketeers parody where Pierfrancesco Favino played a ridiculously accented D’Artagnan). Amusingly, that track record might affect his new film’s box office prospects at home, for despite the title, this is not always a laughing matter. In fact, it’s a rather serious-minded affair.

The setting is Italy in the 17th century. Leopoldo da Casamacchia (Favino) has buried his Prior (Paolo Rossi) and is sort of stranded in the middle of nowhere, having left his usual grounds due to the plague. He soon gains a certain renown: while the Church carries out most of its business in Latin, Leopoldo regales people with Biblical episodes in the local vernacular, complete with animal sounds and the occasional joke. The Pope (Carlo Cecchi, in his final performance) gets wind of this and, believing the friar’s actions to be blasphemous and heretical, sends the most preeminent Inquisitor of the time, Cardinal Maculani (Silvio Orlando), to investigate. The question is, can we laugh when godly matters are involved?

Nowadays, the answer would be positive (Pope Francis is quoted in the end credits), but the intolerant attitude displayed by the Church is not as ancient as one might think, lest we forget Monty Python’s Life of Brian was banned in several countries (in fact, Italian cinemas didn’t receive it until 1990, eleven years after its domestic debut). Of course, that was a pure comedy, which God Laughs really isn’t. Of course, Leopoldo’s stories are sprinkled with humor (and the English subtitles do not do justice to Favino’s use of language, as he speaks in an Umbrian dialect and employs slang terms), but even those moments have an underlying sadness to them, to the extent that when he resorts to profanity in a key scene, it’s cathartic and tragic rather than funny.

Favino is predictably great, every nuance of the friar’s multifaceted existence emanating from his eyes, and Veronesi gives him the right sparring partner in the shape of Orlando as a man weighed down by his own reputation and disillusioned with what the clergy is turning into. Through their repartee and Maurizio Calvesi’s earthy cinematography, the director takes us on a trip to the Italy of yore, a place looking for hope even in the apparently silliest of places, while those in power use faith as an instrument of oppression.

And while some might check out on account of the film’s departure from Veronesi’s usual style, it is precisely when he most explicitly steps outside of his comfort zone that the picture strengthens its position and showcases a cinematic maturity that may take some aback (put simply, scenes involving the Inquisition’s nastier practices are not played for laughs). And yet, at its core, the picture also harkens back to some of the recurring themes in his filmography, and one in particular: the importance of love. Even when the person describing it comes across as a bit of a jester.

Director: Giovanni Veronesi
Screenwriters: Giovanni Veronesi, Nicola Baldoni, Gianluca Bernardini, Nicola De Orsola, Paolo Portone, Jean Jacques Ilunga
Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino, Silvio Orlando, Alma Noce, Francesco Gheghi, Maurizio Lombardi, Paolo Rossi, Carlo Cecchi
Producers: Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib, Marco Cohen, Daniel Campos Pavoncelli, Massimiliano Orfei, Luisa Borella, Davide Novelli
Cinematography: Maurizio Calvesi
Production design: Carmine Guarino
Costume design: Carlo Poggioli
Music: Paolo Buonvino
Sound: Giulio Capanna
Production company: Indiana Production, Ogi Film, Piperfilm
World sales: Piper Play
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Venice Open – Out of Competition/Closing Film)
In Italian
114 minutes