ORE THAN ANY other genre, the romantic comedy depends on a good hook—the situation that bonds prospective lovers together, merrily or otherwise. (Apple TV+) has a great hook: two insomniacs, connecting. With his six-part series (Channel 4), Bellocchio conducts an extended post-mortem, assigning characteristics of the Italian state to individual representatives: the country is diagnosed as neurotic, enfeebled (like Toni Servillo’s Pope Paul VI), as neglected as Moro’s wife (Marguerita Buy). This is serious, sepulchral television—you don’t binge so much as entomb yourself within it—but it grips and unnerves while framing a tricky question indeed. If these politicians, with all the money and power in Rome at their disposal, weren’t even capable of saving one of their own, what hope is there for anyone else? That really is one to keep us awake at night.
TELEVISION
Oct 17, 2023
1 minute
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