Il Legionario is an Italian film from director Hleb Papou along with his co-writers Giuseppe Brigante and Emanuele Mochi, about two brothers at odds. A common cinematic theme, but the stakes are higher here because they are in actual conflict, a war of sorts. Daniel (played by Germano Gentile) works as a riot police office for Rome while his brother Patrick (played by Maurizio Bousso) and their mother are amongst a group of around three hundred people that occupy a building, one that Daniel and his co-workers are being tasked with “cleaning.”
We are first introduced to Daniel, a Black officer, as he and other riot officers engage in a riot. We don’t see his face in the scene, we follow him by the smiley face on the back of his helmet. The smiley face acts as a contrast, a commentary, to the violence on-screen during the scene.
At training, the all-male and, besides Daniel, all-white riot officers employ casual homophobia and racism. They don’t even try to hide it, nicknaming Daniel, “Hot Choco,” but Daniel grins and bares it. He lives in a good apartment with his wife and they are expecting a daughter soon.
We meet Patrick at a townhall style meeting of the residence of the occupied building. The scene sets up that if someone gets injured the city will kick them all out, and an incident with a wall, while no one was injured, has put them all at risk.
The city plans to go forth with a “cleaning” anyway and when Daniel hears he tries his best to get Patrick and his mother to come and stay with him, but they refuse. However, him letting Patrick know about the riot police coming was enough for him to gather enough people to stop the “cleaning,” but it was only a temporary solution.
In the film, you get to see two faces of Italy. There is the one that the officers live in, the kind that tourist associate with Italy, where there are bright and lush apartment balconies with plants growing on them and houses covered in vines. Then there is the Italy of the immigrants, living a collective life out of necessity but also a sense of community over their shared experience.
Daniel remembers living in the occupied building, the fear of getting cleaned out, and has found safety and security and wants to share that with his mother and brother, even if he lied about having living family members to his coworkers to get to where he is. Patrick doesn’t want to leave the home he’s known for the majority of his life, the community he’s built. They succeed at showing the community and why he loves it, while not dismissing the less ideal aspects and that not everyone in the collective gets along.
When the city cut the power, I thought the conclusion would unfold quickly, but the loss of power was just more setup. It allowed us to see that Daniel always felt like his mother chose Patrick, and to see her hurt at the lies Daniel’s told to build his life. It also set up Daniel’s loss of power, at his ability to stay cool to the casual racism of his co-workers. Unbeknownst to him his boss also found out the truth about his brother and mother and where they live. Forced to help clean out his mother and brother’s home he breaks through the barricades and Home Alone style obstacles the residents set up with reckless focus, trying to ensure their safety while attempting to maintain his cover. A perilous tightrope.
The movie did a good job of portraying emotions and conflict as long as you accept the premise that Daniel became a cop after his childhood experiences. It’s hard to swallow, but if you can you’ll be treated to a film that makes great use of its 82-minute running time.
An unexpected highlight in the film came during a demonstration that the building put on while their power was turned off by the city. They had written a letter to the Pope about their situation and a musician had put it to music. The joy Patrick and his other residence felt singing along (while Daniel and his co-workers had to keep the “Italy First” people at bay) was cherry-topped later when a priest showed up and turned on their power in the name of the “Holy Father.” When in Rome.
It played at Locarno Film Festival in their Concorso Cineasti del presente section.