Pillars of the criminal justice system are excoriated in Roberto De Paolis Maino’s existential, absurdist comedy, Serpenti (Snakes), especially the police!
If you like your satire savage, this is the film for you.
The setting is Rome and Italian attitudes and values are skewered, particularly those of the male species.
Sad sack Paolo Marra (Leonardo Lidi) has killed his wife. We aren’t told the reason. Riddled with guilt, he journeys to the police station to turn himself in and pay for his crime. But the desk cop (Daniele Parisi, spot on nutty) doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to do much.
Finally, he’s brought in to see a specialized officer (Alessandro Borghi, deadpan hilarious), who is more fixated on his cluster migraine and flirting with a younger female cop, than dealing with Marra. “What were you expecting? To say you killed your wife and get sent to Alcatraz in a chopper?,” the annoyed policeman asks when Marra appears frustrated that he has to go through so much red tape to get arrested for murder.
After a slew of questions that don’t seem to relate to the crime and a trip to the hardware store, the jaded officer gets Marra a lawyer and sends him off. The shyster attorney (Pietro Castellitto, an absolute hoot), who seems to enjoy vaping, fixates on spinning Marra’s crime so that it’s really seen as a suicide. His misogynist ramblings push Marra to storm back to the station where he demands to speak to the chief of police. He’s reluctantly placed in a waiting room where a whackadoodle fortune teller (Valera Golino, pricelessly funny) insists on reading his cards and comes to the insane conclusion that he should go out and commit another murder and not turn himself in so the cops will have a reason to apprehend him and take all the credit for the arrest—since that’s what they live for.
Serpenti is a nasty black comedy that takes a sardonic, Kafkaesque look at our society’s messed up values. The murder of a woman is treated with indifference and neglect. A vain cop’s tight uniform is more important than getting to the bottom of a serious crime. And a lawyer makes the case that the dead wife probably deserved it.
I would love to see this story in reverse with the wife killing the husband to see where that would go.
The entire cast is to be commended for fabulously quirky and zany work.
The sharp script by Damiano D’Innocenzo, Fabio D’Innocenzo and Paolis Maino impresses.
My only beef with the film is the ending. Such a clever, incisive and vicious work shouldn’t end with a whimper.
Serpenti is part of the Spotlight section of the Venice Film Festival.
In Italian, with English subtitles.
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