Some things are nearly universal, and the Big Brother show, which
began in the Netherlands and quickly spread across six continents, is
one of them. Big Brother and other reality television shows offers ordinary people
with nothing but big personalities a shot at stardom
and viewers the chance to observe the hidden behavior of ordinary
people. Yet the very fact of being observed alters behavior. It is that
reality, not reality television, that is the subject of this movie.
The
big personality belongs to Luciano (Aniello Arena), a Neapolitan
fishmonger with a loving wife, children, and extended family. He’s also
running some kind of scam involving reselling kitchen “robots” that I
didn’t exactly understand. It’s his large family that persuades him to
try out for Big Brother, but pretty soon it’s Luciano who
becomes captivated by the idea of being selected. Is the woman who’s
come all the way from Rome to buy his fish really someone from the
television program checking him out? Is he truly worthy of being a TV
celebrity? Will his small-screen dreams make him miss
the big picture? Matteo Garrone, whose previous film was the Mafia drama Gomorrah, keeps things lighter here, though with a touch of pathos, and only modestly comedic. He bookends the film with visually
inspired long shots that suggest that life, like reality television, is a bit of a construction in which each of us is producer and star.
viewed 4/10/13 7:05 at Ritz Bourse
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