Tribeca Review: Viva Zapatero!

Of the nearly 20 films I’ve seen at Tribeca thus far, Sabina Guzzanti's Viva Zapatero! is easily the most powerful, and possibly the most moving, as well. A documentary that grew out of the cancellation of her satirical TV show on Italian state television (RAI), the film is an eloquent cry of protest against the endless, unchecked violations of free expression, perpetrated by only-recently-former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government. The daughter of a Center-Right Italian senator, Guzzanti is a novice filmmaker, but clearly an experienced public speaker, satirist, and comedienne. She never fails to hold her own, whether she’s performing live on stage, debating Italian politicians in the street, or interviewing members of the press from around the world, and the resulting film is a funny, painful, sharp condemnation of Berlusconi’s actions, as well as a celebration of the spontaneous strength of the Italian people.

In 2003, Guzzanti created a show called RAIot, a satirical program that was singled out for its unusually good writing by the president of RAI just a few days before the first episode aired. Hours before the show was due to debut, however, it was pulled, without warning or explanation. Only when Guzzanti and her colleagues planned a press conference to discuss the affair did RAI relent, and the episode was finally allowed on the air. Ratings were sky-high, and the public clearly loved the show and its skewer of Berlusconi and his associates. Shortly thereafter, however, Berlusconi himself, as well as Mediaset, the holding company for many of his television and newspaper outlets and two other Berlusconi-owned companies, filed defamation lawsuits against the show, to the tune of about €41 million. As a result, RAI took the show off the air -- it wasn’t, they said, a question of censorship, but rather of a company protecting its interests.

Taking that non-censorship as a jumping-off point, Guzzanti launches into an articulate, much-needed examination of the Berlusconi government’s dealings with the media, and the press silence that greets most of the firings and acts of censorship. Because of the Rupert Murdoch-esque breadth of his ownership, Berlusconi and his supporters wield frightening control over both the press and television media, and think nothing of expressing their “disagreement” with content not through arguments, but instead through dismissals of anchors, editors, and commenters, as well as casual, every-day censorship of the press. The freedom of expression is now so limited in Italy that, in 2004, human rights group Freedom House changed the country’s status from “free” to “partially free,” an indication of its pathetic 77th place on a list ranking press freedoms worldwide.

Through interviews with Italian press, politicians, and international satirists and members of the media, combined with clips from both satirical television and Italian parliamentary deliberations, Guzzanti crafts an intelligent, funny, and utterly convincing condemnation of her Prime Minster. What's refreshing, however, is that it’s done without the aggressive nastiness or base mockery that characterizes too many political documentaries. Ironically, given that the trouble began with a decision to satirize Berlusconi in a program that her governmental critics called “not funny” and “not satire” (satire, they claimed, can’t be political, or try to influence public opinion), Guzzanti here displays impressive restraint, deploying her cool intelligence and the evidence at hand in place of jokes to make her case. Make no mistake -- there is abundant humor in the film, but the majority of it comes from either the absurdity of governmental statements about the banning of RAIot (Berlusconi’s case was thrown out when the judge ruled that, because the show was satire, it could not be called defamatory, and pointed out that “most of what they said was true anyway”) or foreign political satires that regularly attack their own governments with an aggression that would send Berlusconi into hiding.

In addition to being both informative and entertaining -- quite an achievement for a foreign documentary, attempted to win over an American audience -- Viva Zapatero! also packs a surprising emotional punch. After spending her entire film engagingly building a case against the Prime Minister, Guzzanti ends on a note of hope as moving as it is completely unexpected. The ending makes the film, which is riveting from beginning to end, so perfectly satisfying that one is loathe to leave the theater, for fear of breaking Guzzanti’s magnificent spell.