Italian director Francesca Comencini (Mi piace lavorare / Mobbing) puts contemporary life in the northern Italian metropolis Milan under the microscope in her new feature A casa nostra (Our Country). The film uses the much en vogue intersecting urban stories-model (Crash, 21 Grams, the local Non prendere impegni stasera / Don't Make Any Plans for Tonight), but here it seems to work against rather than in favour of her overview of the ills of Italian society, never allowing the quick sketches of her multiple protagonists the time to develop into human beings. Acting and technical achievements, however, are strong and partly compensate for the weak characterisation. A casa nostra, which did moderate business in Italy, France and Belgium, may find a bigger audience on DVD and TV. 

 

A casa nostra literally means "in our house" or "in our home", and can be taken to refer to individual dwellings, whole cities or provinces as well as the country at large of the English title. In Italian, this ambiguity blurs the line between the private and public spheres even further, as if there really is no difference between what occurs in the privacy of one’s home and society as a whole, which is exactly the point Comencini tries to make. In this age of Big Brother-like scrutiny into the private worlds of all, it seems a valid point to explore.

 

Unfortunately, this ambiguity is stronger in the title than in the actual film, mainly because the director, who wrote the screenplay with Franco Bernini, scuttles back and forth between laying it on too thick in one scene and then leaving it without any contours in the background in the next. It seems like she wants to make sure the audience gets the point but then hurries back to what she supposes the audience really wants, which is pure melodrama.

 

In Milan, the financial centre of Italy -- due to its proximity to Switzerland and the presence of most of the country's industry -- a louche bank manager called Ugo (Luca Zingaretti, the priest from Alla luce del sole / Into the Light, who is not so holy here) is working on shady stock market deals that very much interest the police, including a tough-as-nails police investigator who has no private life (Valeria Golino, Respiro, reliable).

 

As the country's capital of fashion and glamour, Milan also attracts drug dealers and young girls hoping for a career in equal amounts. They find each other in Comencini's creation of Elodie (Laura Chiatti, who excels at being a bimbo), a model kept in an expensive hotel suite by Ugo who looks ravishing but cares more about her next line of coke than the next line of clothes she might model. She is not particularly interested in Ugo, either. When she spies a handsome supermarket worker (Luca Argentero) who is out with his wife, she flashes him her telephone number. Soon enough, he turns up on her doorstep, though going after a girl kept by Ugo might not be the best of ideas.

 

Still, things could be worse, as another story line follows the tragic fate of an Eastern European girl who was forced into prostitution and who might be saved by the apparently noble intentions of Otello (Giuseppe Batiston, La bestia nel cuore / Don't Tell), a man with a criminal record trying to make amends.

 

All the stories are connected around themes of money, power, corruption and the absence of love, though more often than not they play in full-on melodrama mode, being used not to make a statement or explore a theme but to wring compassion from the audience in the way soap operas do. Because there are so many protagonists and so little time, and each of them, even the apparently good-hearted ones, are extremely good at making bad decisions that are convenient for the plot if not for their own lives, it is hard to identify with any of them, despite the strikingly glossy way in which they are presented. 

 

If anything, the excellent work of cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (La stella che non c'è / The Missing Star)  and production designer Paola Comencini (the director's sister) seems to underline the strange duality of the world we live in: what can happen to you might be shit, but if it is dressed up properly and well-lit, we might be able to forget what lies beneath and just enjoy it as a form of vapid entertainment.