Americans used to the pretzel-twisted prevarications and market-tested, advance-scouted, carefully groomed speeches and appearances of Stateside politicians would be rightfully baffled by the behavior and robustly embraced public persona of current Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is the tangential figure at the center of Erik Gandini’s Videocracy, an interesting documentary examination of tabloid culture, the pursuit of fame for fame’s sake, and tech-age information management that isn’t quite a forceful enough inquisition into the go-go, power-grab pop intersection of said disparate elements to connect in lasting emotional fashion.



A selection at both the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, Gandini’s movie plunks viewers down in the middle of the high-glitz, low-information, skin-baring media culture promulgated by Berlusconi, and then slowly works its way backward, showing how, with three personally owned commercial channels as well as state television at his disposal, the gregarious prime minister owns a grip on 90 percent of Italian television.

We first meet 26-year-old Riccardo, a would-be entertainer who professes to combine the singing and dance moves of Ricky Martin with the martial arts skills of Jean-Claude van Damme, and rages against the injustice of a talent-promotion system that elevates veline, or arm-candy girls who perform wriggling, 30-second dances as TV commercial break bumpers and stand smiling by their hosts, but aren’t ever allowed to speak. (It sounds like hackish, deluded sour grapes until one hears about how Berlusconi tabbed one such ex-showgirl as his cabinet’s “Minister of Gender Equality.”) Later, Videocracy delves into the story of Fabrizio Corona, a sort of paparazzi pimp who lands an eight-month prison stint in a labyrinthine photo extortion case involving well known public figures, and then emerges from jail ready to capitalize on his own demi-celebrity by pitching himself as a pumped-up, himbo entrepreneur.

While it’s often garish and comedically inflected, there’s also a telling, thin undercurrent of wonky dread to the film. Gandini (Gitmo: The New Rule of War), however, seems content to present discrete dots, without ever really attempting to sketch in any grander lines of connection. Sometimes, too, his technique is just lazy; he at one point showcases Berlusconi making a foreign speech, but crucially fails to source the material. Somewhat ironically, given its focus on the idea of image trumping substance, Videocracy needs more talking heads, and a stronger authorial presence.

Media control is unarguably a powerful tool in shaping public opinion,but Gandini’s colorful film, while at times fascinating, is vague, and less than the sum of its parts — a sort of proudly casual, offhand rumination on the desperate impulses of an ambitious Italian underclass. When a television producer opines that “this flow [of glossy, quasi-sexist imagineering] is a mirror of the presidential personality,” one senses the depth of feeling behind this sentiment — its “truthiness,” per Stephen Colbert — but there isn’t enough evidence to render a conviction. To view the film’s trailer, click here. (Kino Lorber, unrated, 85 minutes)