I was at war but I didn’t know it: the film about Pierluigi Torregiani

Taken from the book of the same name by his adopted son Albertotells the sad story of the Milanese jeweler killed by the underworld but not only, offering a glossy cross-section of the darkness of the years of lead in Italy.

I was at war but I didn’t know it: the plot

Milan, 1979. Pierluigi Torregiani (Francesco Montanari) – owner of a small business in the northern suburbs of Milan – suffers an attempted robbery while at the Il Transatlantico restaurant, together with family and friends. Following the collision with consequent shooting, one of the robbers, Orazio Daidone, and a customer, Vincenzo Consoli, a businessman from Catania, die. The reconstruction frees Torreggiani from murder suspicions, it was not he who fired, but many newspapers brand him as a plainclothes executioner.

Political tension rises, and the poor jeweler becomes a perfect target for the PAC, a group of terrorists led by Cesare Battistiwho identify in him a representative of the armed bourgeoisie to be punished.

Torregiani and his family receive death threats and the danger is so real that he is even assigned an escort. But the intimidation does not stop: more and more invasive, they condition him at work and especially in relations with family memberswhich are consumed to the point of breaking up with his wife Elena, played by Laura Chiatti.

Between detective films and thrillers

Supported by a dark and menacing photographwhich seems to foretell the tragedy, Fabio Resinaro’s film poses itself from the very first scenes as a sort of reboot of the so-called “civil” cinema. A genre that in the last thirty years has tried, often with success, to decipher Italian (especially political) history through the lens of the camera.

I was at war but I didn’t know it however, he fails to hit the mark, despite certain apt film noir tones. The director indeed reconstructs the news story without contextualizing that period complex, making the film substantially indecipherable for those who do not already have an adequate historical background.

Laura Chiatti and Juju Di Domenico.

Although the excellent performance of Montanari – that from ex Lebanese of the series Criminal novel passes with conviction to the Milanese dialect -, the film loses power scene after scene. Also sacrificing the skill of Laura Chiattirelegated to the role of a bored wife who leafs through women’s magazines without a minimum of psychological introspection.

Who was Pierluigi Torregiani

Born in the 1930s, Torregiani was a prominent figure in the Bovisa districtactive in social life, philanthropist and with a gold Ambrogino displayed in his shop. I have been suffering from lung cancer for some time, during a hospital stay befriends a widow, referred to death he adopts his three children in agreement with his wife Elena.

Pierluigi Torregiani in the 70s. (HANDLE)

Famous for some teleshopping of jewelry in private networks, after the robbery in the restaurant ended badly Pierlugi ends on the front page on Republic with the pseudonym of “sheriff” and “executioner”. The attempts at rectification are of little use, and for him the fate seems already sealed. One month after the shooting, is killed by three members of the PAC as he is entering his shop; her son is also injured fifteen years old Alberto, a paraplegic since then.

In the ensuing trial, the perpetrators are sentenced to 30 years of prison.

The words of Francesco Montanari

Already protagonist of other important titles always with a civil themelike the series The hunterFrancesco wondered if Torregiani was unpleasant: «He is so in spite of himself, because he finds himself living in a dynamic stronger than him, which he can no longer bear and so he rebels. She does not agree to pretend nothing has happened, he is a pragmatic man who does not want to submit to something he is not guilty of. ‘

For Torregiani’s son: «The film shows how well the media lynching was the real engine of that murder. But I didn’t want my father to be told only as a victim; my dad was pretty much as seen in the movie, a person with a strong austere, stubborn charactercapable of facing everything “.

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