What the "German Autumn" was for the Federal Republic, the culmination of the RAF terror burned into the collective memory in the Schleyer kidnapping and the hostage-taking of the "Landshut", was for Italy the escalation of the attacks of the Red Brigades on the heart of the state: On March 16, 1978, the communist terrorist organization kidnapped Aldo Moro, the former prime minister and now party chairman of the conservative government, which had become synonymous with government power in post-war Italy. Democrazia Cristiana. His five bodyguards died in a hail of bullets. 55 agonizing days later, Moro was also dead: The body of the shot man was found in the trunk of a small car, in the middle of Rome.
Italy has not yet finished with this
Ursula Scheer
Editor in the arts section.
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To this day, Italy has not finished with the "anni di piombo", the leaden years beginning in the late sixties and slowly ending in the early eighties – after the Bologna bombing – in which political terrorists from left and right violently covered the country.
Just over a year ago, Rome and Paris clashed over the failure to extradite Italian left-wing terrorists who have been evading prosecution in France for decades. Other perpetrators, released from Italian custody, meet for talks with family members of victims. More and more books are appearing about the Moro case, for which not all files can be viewed. The discussion about guilt and atonement, about power, powerlessness and the role of the state continues – and now the war in Ukraine sharpens the view of the already distant era of the Cold War.
Marco Bellocchio never let go of the time of terror
The Italian director and screenwriter Marco Bellocchio, born in 1939 and not tired of creation, has never let go of the time of terror. In 1995 he made a documentary about Moro's kidnapping, in 2003 a feature film on the subject, now follows a six-part television series. Unlike the film, "Esterno notte", german "And Outside the Night", does not tell of the events of spring 1978 from the perspective of the kidnappers, but circles them from different sides: from the perspective of Aldo Moro; that of his party colleague, the Minister of the Interior, Francesco Cossiga; Pope Paul VI, to whom Moro was personally attached; terrorist Adriana Faranda; He was married by Moro's wife Eleonora, and finally Moros himself.
After the baroque multi-parter "Il traditore – Als Kronzeuge gegen die Mafia", in which Bellocchio dramatized the life of the godfather Tommaso Buscetta, he returns with a quiet, psychologically precise and thus more gripping chamber play from episode to episode. It is an epic night piece of around three hundred minutes.
Night also reigns inside the figures
Night reigns not only outside, as the title suggests, but also inside the figures. In dimly lit rooms, they suffer late at night from their decisions or what is perceived as oppressively narrow room for manoeuvre – without finding sleep. Insomnia is just one of the diseases of the middle-aged to old men at the head of the Republic and the Church, for whom Francesco Di Giacomo's camera is often literally breathing down their necks.