Love and Anarchy

Giancarlo Giannini won the Best Actor prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival for his turn in Lina Wertmüller’s tragicomic tale, set in the early 1930s, of an anarchist (Giannini) who plans to assassinate Mussolini with help from a Roman sex worker (Mariangela Melato) who herself seeks to avenge a previous lover’s death. But he finds himself sidetracked by his attraction to another sex worker (Lina Polito), causing him to confront his own understanding of love while at the same time trying to carry out his mission by getting closer to the head of Mussolini’s secret police. A work of immense irony and emotion, Love and Anarchy is a searing depiction of the horrors of fascism and contemporary socialists’ and anarchists’ desperate wish to prevent their consolidation of power. 35mm print courtesy of Cinecittà.