Slap the Monster on Page One
 

PostED ON15.10.2024

In Italy of the 1970s, a young bourgeois girl is raped and murdered. Instructed by the editor-in-chief of a major daily newspaper, the police arrest a young communist activist. But is he guilty? 

Slap the Monster on Page One by Marco Bellocchio (1972) © DR

Slap the Monster on Page One is a bona fide political thriller. Behind the sordid crime story, Italian director Marco Bellocchio addresses one of his favourite themes: the influence of power and social status on individual destinies. Actor Gian Maria Volonté, a Communist activist, portrays an absolutely cynical, legitimist, unyielding  newspaper boss. The sets and creative direction by Dante Ferreti, plus the music by Nicola Piovani, add a tormented depth to this intrigue that is ultimately as lucid as it is pessimistic. Restored by Minerva Pictures at the L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna and produced in DCP in its original version with French subtitles exclusively for the Lumière film festival, Slap the Monster on Page One , right up to its very symbolic and powerful climax, resonates as an appalling, breathless account of Italian democracy at the time, still hindered by the prevailing religious decorum. 

Virginie Apiou

Screenings

Viol en première page by Marco Bellocchio (Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina, 1972, 1h27)
UGC Astoria Sun 13 11am | UGC Confluence Tue 15 4:30pm | Pathé Bellecour Fri 18 6:15pm