''The Caiman'' ( it, Il caimano, referring to the

caiman A caiman (also cayman as a variant spelling) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico, Central and South America f ...

) is a 2006 Italian comedy-drama film directed by

Nanni Moretti Giovanni "Nanni" Moretti (; born 19 August 1953) is an Italian film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His films have won accolades including a Palme d'Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for ''The Son's Room'', a Silver Bear at the ...

and starring

Silvio Orlando Silvio Orlando (born 30 June 1957) is an Italian actor. Orlando was born and raised in Naples, where he started acting in theatre in 1976. He made his film debut in 1988 with a supporting role in the comedy '' Kamikazen: Last Night in Milan'' ...

and

Margherita Buy Margherita Buy (born 15 January 1962) is an Italian actress. She is a seven-time David di Donatello Awards winner and seven-time Nastro d'argento winner. Overview After a long period of studying at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, she made her b ...

. Focusing on

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies f ...

's vicissitudes, it was released just before the beginning of the

2006 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2006. * Elections in 2006 * Electoral calendar 2006 * 2006 Acehnese regional election * 2006 American Samoan legislative election * 2006 Bahraini parliamentary election * 2006 Costa Rican president ...

, in which Berlusconi lost. It was one of the most successful films of 2006 in Italy. It was entered into the

2006 Cannes Film Festival The 59th Cannes Film Festival was held from 17 to 28 May 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official selection Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over t ...

Plot

Opening with a wedding between two young Communists, officiated by a CP functionary, under the poster of Mao-Tse Tung, the bride suddenly spears the man and escapes, chased by the police. This is the end of 'Cataratte'/'Cataracts', a 10-year-old action B-movie projected in an open-air cinema in honor of Bruno Bonomo (

), a cockeyed film producer, who did some trash movies starring his wife Paola (

) in the 1970s. He also has two young sons loved by him and his wife. During this homage, a young woman presents him the script of a movie she wants to direct with his help. Slated to start on a project celebrating the return voyage of Columbus just after his discovery of America, Bruno is stunned when his director, Franco Caspio, quits because of the low budget. Suddenly Bruno has no projects, no financing and no leverage. Added to his many troubles, Bruno's wife asks for a separation even though they have two sons. She wants to pursue her artistic options. Bruno reads the offered script and realizes that it's a thinly disguised account of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media magnate who promoted his political career through his TV stations. Knowing this could draw political and legal heat, not to mention difficulty for finding funding; but the young woman convinces Bruno to start production on ''The Caiman''. The film shows how secret money, slush funds and Swiss bank accounts start Il Caimano's career as a big building developer. She hopes that the film will influence voters in the elections slated for 2006. Starting to fall in love with the writer, Bruno meets her lesbian partner and her son 'made' in a 'journey' to the Netherlands. The production of the film is rife with problems, including the defection of the main actor Marco Pulici (

Michele Placido Michele Placido (; born 19 May 1946) is an Italian actor, film director, and screenwriter. He began his career on stage, and first gained mainstream attention through a series of roles in films directed by the likes of Mario Monicelli and Marco ...

), but the plot of ''The Caiman'' also deals with the domestic issues between Bonomo and Paola until their final separation, with the compromises made for their two sons. Despite growing evidence that his film will never be completed, Bonomo decides to shoot the last scene, which shows the political nucleus behind the film: in it, Silvio Berlusconi (played by

himself) enters the tribunal room to hear the ruling against him (see Legal investigations of Berlusconi), which sentences him to seven years of jail. Notwithstanding the sentence, Berlusconi/Moretti exits the tribunal while a crowd throws debris at the judges, including a

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with fla ...

. The whole, crude scene is not only an allusion to Berlusconi's judiciary controversies, but also to his powerful ability to communicate, which (in Moretti's view) led Italian people to support him anyway despite his controversial past.

Cast

as Bruno Bonomo *

as Paola Bonomo / Aidra *

Jasmine Trinca Jasmine Trinca (; born 24 April 1981) is an Italian actress. Trinca was born in Rome, Italy. She began her career in 2001, chosen by Nanni Moretti for his award-winning '' The Son's Room'', receiving the Guglielmo Biraghi prize as Best New Tale ...

as Teresa *

as Marco Pulici /

as Himself / Silvio Berlusconi *

Giuliano Montaldo Giuliano Montaldo (born 22 February 1930) is an Italian film director. Biography While he was still a young student, Montaldo was recruited by the director Carlo Lizzani for the role of leading actor in the film '' Achtung! Banditi!'' (1951). ...

as Franco Caspio *

Antonello Grimaldi Antonio Luigi Grimaldi, known as Antonello Grimaldi (born 14 August 1955) is an Italian actor, film director, film and television director, and screenwriter. Biography Grimaldi was born on 14 August 1955 in Sassari on the island of Sardinia in ...

as Direttore di Produzione *

Paolo Sorrentino Paolo Sorrentino (; born 31 May 1970) is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and writer. His 2013 film ''The Great Beauty'' won the Academy Awards, Academy Award, the Golden Globe Awards, Golden Globe, and the British Academy of Film and Te ...

as Marito di Aidra * Elio De Capitani as Silvio Berlusconi *

Tatti Sanguineti Tatti may refer to : People * Calliope Tatti (1894–1978) * Francesco de Tatti, a 16th-century Italian painter * Jessica Tatti (born 1981), German politician Places * Tatti, Massa Marittima, a hamlet in the Italian municipality of Massa Marit ...

as Beppe Savonese * Jerzy Stuhr as Jerzy Sturovsky *

Toni Bertorelli Toni Bertorelli (18 March 1948 – 26 May 2017) was an Italian actor. He performed in over sixty films. Biography Bertorelli was born in Barge, Piedmont, Italy. Bertorelli began his acting career in 1969 working with his friend Carlo Cecchi. H ...

as Indro Montanelli *

Matteo Garrone Matteo Garrone (born 15 October 1968) is an Italian filmmaker. Born in Rome, the son of a theatre critic, Nico Garrone and a photographer, in 1996 Garrone won the ''Sacher d'Oro'', an award sponsored by Nanni Moretti, with the short film ''Silho ...

as Direttore della fotografia * Lorenzo Alessandri as Aiuto regista * Giancarlo Basili as Fritz Simmons, lo scenografo * Anna Bonaiuto as Pubblico Ministero Numerous Italian film makers play minor parts in the film. These include

Carlo Mazzacurati Carlo Mazzacurati (2 March 1956 – 22 January 2014) was an Italian film director and screenwriter born in Padua. He started his cinema career in 1980. His better known films include ''Il Toro'' (1994) and ''La lingua del santo'' (2000). H ...

, Tatti Sanguinetti,

Paolo Virzì Paolo Virzì (; born 4 March 1964) is an Italian film director, writer and producer. Early life and work Virzì was born in Livorno, Italy in 1964, as the son of a Sicilian police officer in the Carabinieri and a former singer. After spending ...

and

while actor and director

is one of the main characters.

References

2. ''La condanna di Silvio Berlusconi. Morte politica e civile del Caimano. La sentenza Mediaset'', Marianna Fo ed., 2013.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Caiman, The 2006 films Italian satirical films Films directed by Nanni Moretti 2000s political comedy-drama films Works about Silvio Berlusconi Films about mass media owners Films about filmmaking Films about prime ministers Italian political comedy-drama films Cultural depictions of Silvio Berlusconi 2000s Italian-language films