Edoardo Gabbriellini wisely privileges the life, rather than the horrific murder, of a young Roman man, but in sensitively bringing his story to the screen, he’s forgotten that marginalized communities can’t be only portrayed as deviant. Does a filmmaker have a responsibility towards marginalized communities? It’s an irreconcilable debate given the unbridgeable chasm between the two sides: Is the onus on the artist, or the audience?
Edoardo Gabbriellini’s “The City of the Living” is a beautiful, heartrending film that sensitively builds a multifaceted character as real as any you’ll see, his flaws reinforcing rather than deflecting from the sympathy we feel for him, his girlfriend and his parents. Of course it’s impossible to imbue every role with the same three-dimensionality, yet there’s a problem when the most vile people imaginable become reduced to just two things: psychopathic behavior, and queerness. Most Italians already know what’s coming.
Luca Varani, 23, was a working-class regular Roman Joe forging his own way in life when he was sadistically murdered 10 years ago by a couple of drugged-up gay men whose brutality was so shocking that Gabbriellini thankfully condenses the horror, only hinting at the bloody carnage left behind. On the surface, the gay angle isn’t a problem — only a fool would suggest there’s any difference between a gay or straight psychopath, and this was a real event after all, loosely based on a true crime novel by Nicola Lagioia. But for those concerned about the paucity of positive gay representation in Italian media, and the vastly underreported levels of homophobic aggression throughout the country, it’s impossible not to feel frustrated that the only attribute accorded the murderers is their sexuality.
For a film as perceptive as this one, so attuned to its protagonists, this blind spot feels disheartening precisely because we feel so emotionally invested in Luca’s well-being. It’s likely the problem won’t even register with most audiences, and there will always be those arguing that “based on a real story” absolves everyone from any liability. But the controversy surrounding Buffalo Bill and “The Silence of the Lambs” hasn’t gone away, and it’s even more inescapable in “The City of the Living.” Had Lagioia’s largely excellent script, adapted from his book, included even a minor positive gay character, there would be nothing to complain about.
Instead, we’re presented with deviant men defined only by their fetishes, creating an uneasy imbalance that’s impossible to ignore. Were this a bad or even mediocre film, it would be easy to dismiss, but the truth is Gabbriellini has made his best movie to date, one that wisely refuses to theorize, plunging us without judgment into the life of its deeply sympathetic protagonist. Luca (a superb Emanuele Maria Di Stefano) is loved, joyously, by his adoptive parents Silvana (Simona Senzacqua) and Giuseppe (Valerio Mastandrea).
The family lives in a nondescript neighborhood on the outskirts of Rome, forming part of what New Yorkers would call “the bridge and tunnel crowd” who occasionally come into the city center but don’t engage with its urban diversity. Luca works with his dad on the gewgaw truck they own, selling brightly colored knickknacks and candies along roadsides and itinerant amusement parks, and he’s also in night school to finish his high school degree, though he’s bored witless. Among the film’s many strengths is its focus on character rather than explanation; information isn’t spoon-fed, and background relationships and dreams are organically conveyed through interactions.
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