Loro 18

After his arthouse hits The Great Beauty and Youth, and a foray into television with HBO series The Young Pope, Oscar-winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino is back with Loro (‘them’), an ambitious, sexually explicit, no-holds-barred satire of the life and misfortunes of the corrupt, scandal-ridden four-term Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his inner circle.

The film starts by placing us in the seedy orbit of Sergio (Riccardo Scamarcio), a power-hungry up-and-comer whose ambition is to get close to Berlusconi (portrayed masterfully by Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo). His methods of doing so are scandalous to say the least, but have the desired effect.

Similarly to Sorrentino’s acclaimed Il Divo, Loro vivisects the tumultuous sleaze of recent Italian politics; this time through the activities – both known and imagined – of its most infamous modern politician. A cynical, sharp-eyed portrayal of power and how to obtain it, the film doesn’t glamorise the corruption and vulgarity we see on screen, but neither does it judge it, positioning it somewhere between farce and tenderness in a way that keeps the film turning over in your mind for days.