Allonsanfàn (Blu-Ray Review)

In the sprawling tapestry of Italian cinema, the names Paolo and Vittorio Taviani are no longer likely to be the first to come to mind for film buffs, particularly those of us in the UK. Once critical darlings with an international profile established by their 1977 Palme d'Or winner Padre Padrone, the Taviani's work has proved relatively elusive here in the age of streaming. Hopefully, that looks to be changing; the BFI is currently wrapping up a two-month retrospective of the brothers' work, and now Radiance has released a Blu-ray of their long-unavailable 1974 film Allonsanfàn, a picaresque about a band of doomed Italian insurrectionists during the years of the Restoration.

Marcello Mastroianni stars as the Jacobin aristocrat Fulvio Imbriani, who at the film's opening is released from prison. He is promptly kidnapped by the Sublime Brothers, his secret revolutionary sect, who accuse him of betraying them.

Political disillusionment is the theme of Allonsanfàn, and indeed a pessimism of spirit infects much of the film. Fulvio will get his classical comeuppance, but the devoted revolutionaries aren't exactly venerated either. At times, their escapades verge on farce. What, then, to make of the enigmatic titular character (Stanko Molnar), the young, idealistic, and disarmingly handsome insurgent whose name is modelled on the first words of “La Marseillaise” — hopelessly naive dreamer, or sign of change to come? “We came too late, or too early,” Fulvio is told by his suicidal associate Lionello (Claudio Cassinelli), and whether or not this defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophesy, it's telling that the Tavianis chose to tell a story set at a historical moment where revolutionary politics didn't yet seem like an option. No surprise that the film was made during a period of somewhat impoverished socialism in Italy; the radical energies of May '68 had dissipated, leaving the Tavianis themselves disillusioned.

The film's tone is hardly as bleak as all that makes it sound. Actually, it's punctuated by moments of unexpected levity, many of which come courtesy of a soundtrack from legendary composer Ennio Morricone. Esther performs a lively rendition of a folk song, and Fulvio, rather ridiculously, commandeers a restaurant musician's violin to play for his son. During a scene set during a carnival, Morricone's rousing main theme (later recycled for the end of Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds) enters the diegesis as the tune to which the Sublime Brothers perform a southern peasant dance — a bit of fun that returns as a defiant political gesture towards film's end. It's hardly Morricone's most memorable of impactful score, though that says more about the composer's remarkable output than anything else.

Throughout, the Tavianis demonstrate characteristic flourishes of imagination; during the early skirmish, for instance, the camera stays trained on a dog utterly disoriented by the chaos unfolding around it. Occasionally, things stray into the realm of magical realism. A dinner table conversation (that makes use of some gorgeous chiaroscuro courtesy of cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini) turns to the topic of Fulvio's inclination to attach colours to people, and we are treated to a series of shots of each family member filtered through their respective colours.

The film itself is particularly attentive to the significance of colour, especially sickly greens and the revolutionary red given to the Sublime Brothers' garb. This is one of the key topics explored by critic Michael Brooke's audio commentary, which is as insightful as it is entertaining; see an anecdote about an insecure Mastroianni commissioning some prosthetic calves for the film. Brooke digs into the historical contexts — that is, nineteenth-century and 1970s Italy — that informed the production, especially valuable given the relative dearth of English-language writing on the film currently out there. A 1966 interview with Paolo Taviani (alongside other Italian filmmakers) is similarly enlightening, though as an audio-only conversation it seems a somewhat strange selection for the only other major special feature on the disc. It's only a minor quibble; Radiance have done a fantastic job with the restoration, and the film itself is well worth seeking out.

Special Features:

• New 2K restoration of the film from the original negative, presented on English-subtitled Blu-ray for the first time in the world
• Original uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Audio commentary by critic Michael Brooke
• Archival interview with the Taviani brothers by critic Gideon Bachmann in which they discuss filmmaking approaches, the role of the director, the future of cinema and more (57 mins)
• Original trailer
• Newly translated English subtitles
• Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Italian cinema expert Robert Lumley and a newly translated contemporary interview with the Taviani brothers
• Single pressing of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Allonsanfàn releases in the UK on February 26th courtesy of Radiance Films