IL SORPASSO

This brilliant and harsh tale is about the meeting of two destinies: it’s a perfectly classic film, where irony conceals ambition and seriousness and where improvisation and rigor blend well. The two characters are a product of their environment: an amoral, superficial society, at the verge of overconsumption, already destabilized, made of individuals doomed to be disappointed.
“Vittorio Gassman’s character has never been able to ‘build’ anything and that’s why he only knows how to ‘destroy’ – commented Dino Risi – he is the typical Italian man, superficial and fascist. He is helpless, weak-willed, his power lies entirely in his physical presence, a sort of impact strength which lacks any profound quality or morality”.
Jacques Lourcelles