Quote from a translated Italian newspaper ad, which promises “the shocking truth” and “an indictment against society.” Given the film’s brutal subject matter, it’s no surprise Renato Savino’s THE CHILDREN OF VIOLENT ROME (1976) was “prohibited to minors under 18-years of age.”
One of the more obscure “youths run wild” films, this is yet another urban crime story ripped directly from blood-soaked Italian headlines during the turbulent Years of Lead (1968 – 1982), a period characterized by numerous terrorist attacks and unprecedented acts of violence from across the political spectrum. One such case, which took place in 1975 between the 29th and 30th of September in Circeo, a beach resort town outside Rome, involved a trio of affluent youngsters from Parioli (a northern suburb of Rome) who abducted, tortured and raped two women, Donatella Colasanti and Rosaria Lopez. Although Colasanti survived her ordeal, this crime of brutal violence sent shock waves of outrage throughout the country and media. As with the present title, Sergio Grieco’s and Massimo Felisatti’s VIOLENCE FOR KICKS (1976) and Marino Girolami’s ROMA, L’ALTRA FACCIA DELLA VIOLENZA (1976) were likewise derived from the same shocking news story.
Although Savino’s film is a fictional account of said factual incident, the film attempts to gain some authenticity by employing a documentary-like pre-credits sequence. Reporting on juvenile delinquency through a series of on-the-spot interviews with real-life citizens, Savino accurately reflects on the current dilemma plaguing Italy at the time. “We have reached a point of no return.” Remarks one frustrated citizen, while another surmises that tougher laws need to be implemented.
Using the above headline as a prime motivator, Savino’s film chiefly focuses on a band of Neo-fascist, bourgeois punks led by Marco Garroni (Gino Milli), a true sociopath who represents the extreme far-right in its most negative incarnation. Huddling together in their spacious Nazi-themed subterranean hideout, this group of Pariolini teens (one of the film’s few authentic details to the real-life events) either talk politics (“I cannot be fascist because fascism is just pseudo-socialism.”) or plan their next anarchic crime spree in the hopes of subverting the prevailing political order. While their headquarters seem almost comically over-the-top with swastikas and giant posters of Adolf Hitler adorning each and every wall, Savino does however, emphasize the bitter contrasts between the Haves and Have-Nots, which is constantly reiterated throughout the film. Although occasionally forced by circumstance to join forces, Schizzo (Emilio Locurio) and his gang of proletarian hooligans must eke out a living as scippatori stealing whatever they can, including sandwiches or roast chickens for their next meal, whereas Marco dines on wine and gnocchi at a swish restaurant. A by-product of wealthy, but emotionally loveless parents who either trade-off genuinely demonstrative familial affection with either material possessions or protection from the law (“You’ve done a robbery… You know what it cost to get you out of that?”), Marco and his gang are very much at odds amidst the working-class Roman neighbourhoods driving around in his father’s classy Jaguar XJ, which does come in handy following an attempted robbery, where he and his gang test the limits of their power knowing full well they are beyond the law and above suspicion.
Exceedingly cynical in its general tone and outlook, which seems to revel in the very sex and violence it’s purportedly condemning, THE CHILDREN OF VIOLENT ROME is a picture so exploitative and so unlikable (which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it!), it’s impossible to root for any of the characters in the film. Although Schizzo’s gang subsists as petty thieves, which even includes the spontaneous theft of a motorcycle, Savino’s does instill some depth of character and pathos when Schizzo is seen scrounging for food, but then quickly shatters that illusion when he and his gang rape a woman and beat-up her boyfriend in lover’s lane. As if answering some unspoken desire of the director himself, even one of the film’s many rape victims (Cristina Businari) begins to enjoy her ordeal, after which she vehemently extols the virtues of being forcibly taken, “It’s violence which excites us to the most extreme limits!” In essence, Savino merely gives us his take on the events leading up to that fateful act of violence or “extreme limit,” which involves the brutal re-enactment of the Circeo Massacre that is difficult to forget. Ultimately, the film offers no solutions to a complex sociological problem other than a quick afterthought flashed across the screen by film’s end, “We’ve shown you what could happen. What are you going to do to stop it?” which, if anything else, plainly reveals Savino’s right-wing sympathies.
Despite large doses of sex and violence, THE CHILDREN OF VIOLENT ROME was mainly intended for domestic consumption whose very Italian perspective must have seemed like a real handicap for foreign exporters, so it should come as no surprise that even on home video, the film never made it out of Italy. Released on Italian VHS by PCX Home Video, which included a decent widescreen transfer of the film, it eventually made the jump to DVD in 2005 courtesy of Italy’s Surf Video as part of their “Serie Z” sub-label, but this nice-looking edition was once again not English-friendly. Skipping forward 20-years, boutique label Terror Vision decided to issue this “problematic” film on Blu-ray, in what is easily the film’s definitive release. “Scanned and restored in 2K from its original camera negative,” TV’s region free Blu looks immaculate, delivering a solid, detailed image that really brings out the film’s heretofore unseen colour palette, while accurately depicting the grim surroundings of the eternally divided Eternal City. The Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is also consistently clear without any issues to report, while the optional English subtitles provided by Eugenio Ercolani and Francesco Massaccesi, no doubt replicate the Roman dialect as precisely as possible.
In view of the film’s tricky nature, Terror Vision have put together several interesting extras to help put everything in context beginning with an audio commentary from Italian cinema experts Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti where they discuss everything from the film’s “broad-term” English translation of the film’s title, the “watershed moment in Italian culture” that inspired the film and Renato Savino’s short career as a production manager, writer and director working in the “underbelly of the industry.” Of course, they also talk about the Circeo Massacre (“One of the most heinous and despicable events to ever occur in Italy.”) and how Savino’s “instant movie” is a “kaleidoscope of what Italy was and will become” at the time, the film’s many troubling elements, the many different dialects used in the film, which are lost on North American English-speaking audiences, and some of the similarities to Romolo Guerrieri’s superior YOUNG, VIOLENT, DANGEROUS (1976). It’s a very good, fact-filled conversion, which not only helps reveal Italy’s political turmoil at the time of the film’s production, but a great deal about low-budget filmmaking, and Savino’s unique place in the lower-echelons of the Italian film industry. TV’s Blu-ray also includes another commentary track with Rachael Nisbet who provides a more scholarly observation into the film’s many “sociological subtexts,” Savino’s “directorial intentions,” the headlines of the era and similar confrontations between Neo-fascists and anarchist communists in the piazza San Babila in Milan, which was also extensively covered in Carlo Lizzani’s remarkable but equally-shocking SAN BABILA 8.P.M. (1976). She also goes over much of Savino’s background, details on the cast and crew, the film’s poor critical reception, which was described by some reviewers as “so crude and superficial that it borders on the laughable” and the “contentious attitudes of the time,” in what is yet another in-depth and well-researched listen for this “provocative” film.
Eugenio Ercolani also produces a few must-see featurettes beginning with Cutting a Violent Rome (24m), an on-camera interview with editor Roberto Colangeli who goes over much of his career including his early stints working with his father Otello Colangeli who was difficult to work with, but at the same time, he learned much of his trade from his father and veteran cutter. As for the film at hand, he thought it was a “very cheap and bad film, but does admit it also has “a very rough and natural” feel which works in its favour. He also chats about some of his working relationships with other directors such as Renato Polselli and Mario Gariazzo. In The Lawless Breed (27m25s), character actor Marco Zuanelli, best remembered for his role as Wobbles in Sergio Leone’s masterpiece ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969), talks extensively about his time working with Savino who was “very humane despite being meticulous and strict on set,” and a “fascist from head-to-toe!” Eventually, he fell out of acting (he is an architect by trade) because from a “human standpoint,” he didn’t like the environment. He also gets a chuckle at the Americans who are “wasting their time over this flick!” Gino Milli (a.k.a. Luigi Miglietta) is interviewed next in Baby Face Gino (32m24s) where he talks about his start in the film business including a number of small parts in prestigious films from the likes of Pietro Germi and Mauro Bolognini alongside several exploitation films (“I accepted those parts mostly to survive.”), which, if anything, allowed him to extend his acting capabilities. As expected, he also discusses working with Savino and said film, which he found “tough to make” due to its subject matter, and how he became “disenchanted” after losing a major role to Michele Placido in Alberto Negrin’s mini-series IL PICIOTTO (1973). The disc also comes with an informative booklet with a “collection of essays” from Pier Maria Bocchi, Sam Dunkley, Sam Cohen, and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
While it lacks many of the genre’s traditional trappings such as pyrotechnics, Renato Savino’s THE CHILDREN OF VIOLENT ROME is definitely a watchable enough crossover with enough deviant delinquency to keep fans of more straight-ahead polizieschi consistently entertained.
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