Volere, Volare

Maurizio (Nichetti) is a shy sound effects man who wanders around the city in search of the perfect honk, creak or squeak for whatever cartoon he is dubbing. Martina (Finocchiaro) likes to describe herself as a social worker, but is in fact a callgirl catering to a kinky clientèle. Of course these two lonely romantics meet, and Maurizio begins to feel strange stirrings. Little does he realise, he is turning into a cartoon! Like Nichetti's Icicle Thief (Manuli is responsible for the animation), this harks back to a golden cinematic era from a bold, post-modernist perspective. Nichetti evokes comparison with the great slapstick comedians; indeed, he is referred to occasionally as 'Little Moustache', surely a nod to Chaplin's 'little fellow'. But Chaplin the on-screen moralist would probably have had a heart attack if he'd seen the outrageous climax contrived here: a sex scene to titillate the most jaded palate, with the fully-animated Maurizio hilariously credible. The film takes a good half-hour to find its feet, and Nichetti himself is sometimes a rather graceless clown, but there are brilliantly inventive gags even in the slack passages.