Cronaca di un amore violato

Luca feels rejected by women. He lives with a mother who is trying to rebuild her life, he idealizes a father he almost never meets and is in love with a girl who doesn't even see him when they almost bump into each other in the street. He spends his time locked up in his room together with a video camera which he uses as a kind of audiovisual diary. The longing for attention eventually makes him lose control of his feelings. One night he rapes Valeria - the woman he is in love with - in a parking lot. Because it is dark she never sees her rapists face. Luca returns and takes care of Valeria, pretending to come to her rescue. They start to see each other. However the craving for acknowledgement continues. As soon as Luca finds himself alone with a woman he approaces her and eventually tries to rape her. The humiliation of rape is shot in long sequences which are in no way glorifying. However even if the first rape seems almost accidental, the following ones seem to be a way of expressing Luca's sense of hopelessness, since he knows on some level thathe has wasted his chanses. If Valeria wants him he has to carry the shame, the secret and the blame. Cronaca di un amore violato is set in contemporary Rome and is a well-made psychological thriller. The build-up of tension is achieved by using a classical device where the viewers know more than the victims. The story also has a documentary touch thanks to the black and white filmsequences from Luca's own videos which are weaved into the plot to great effect. The film is based on a novel by Anna Maria Pellegrino, how-ever the original title - ''Diary of a Rapist'' has in the Italian film title been changed into something with a more romantic ring to it, ''Chronicle of a Violated Love''. Really, the film could be set in any city. The director Battiato does not make any attempt to find out what is wrong with the Italian society today, instead Luca gets to represent the lonely person in the big city who sees but is not seen and whose feeling of inadequacy is so over-whelming that it makes him snap. The criticism focus on all the homes where people don't communicate and to some extent on the absence of a father figure. The question of the law is brought up via Loreana, one of Luca's victims, who refrains from turning him in to the police. Society can never punish a rapist enough, is her way of reasoning. JR

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Medverkande
Roberto Zibetti, Sophie Broustal, Isabella Ferrari: Producent
Gianfranco Piccioli: Manus
Giacomo Battiato & Graziano Diana, based on the novel “Diario di uno stupratore” by Anna Maria Pelle: Foto
Roberto Forza: Musik
Mario De Benito