Diaz: Don’t Clean Up This Blood, 2012.
Directed by Daniele Vicari.
Starring Claudio Santamaria, Jennifer Ulrich, Elio Germano and Davide Iacopini.
SYNOPSIS:
A reenactment of the final days of the 2001 G8 Summit.
Watching Diaz as someone with no understanding – beyond having read a synopsis attached to this DVD – of the historical events on which it’s based fortified both its strengths and weaknesses. It’s an angry, political film with little political context included for the uninitiated. It’s a humanist film but built around a reductive, almost archetypal ‘good vs evil’ conflict.
Of course, speaking as someone ignorant about the real events, this may be an entirely accurate depiction. But the level of its bias towards the fresh-faced young protestors, all pretty and liberal (in the most broadly-drawn sense) and against the thick-set, furrowed-browed, uniformed police and politicians, only serves to make one suspicious about what’s not being shown. And when a film seems to promise the real story from ground-level – suggested from early on when a confrontation between police and protestors is seen through both the film’s dramatic lens and that of contemporary news footage – to take such a bias is frustrating.
From the subtitle ‘Don’t Clean Up This Blood‘, a sentiment apparently based on a protest sign posted during the aftermath of the police raid of Diaz school, we can assume the filmmakers are aware of how unaware much of their audience might be concerning these horrific events. This is a documentary-realistic depiction of atrocities about which we have a duty to be aware, a point made especially acute by the film’s following characters from numerous countries, in their native languages, all severely effected physically and emotionally. It recalls Paul Greengrass’ United 93 but with an added Rashomon-like structure surrounding a glass bottle symbolically (I repeat, SYMBOLICALLY) being thrown and smashing to pieces in a road. This structure is effective but the bottle motif is ultimately needless and inane.
We begin with an introduction to protestors in Genoa, Italy, during the G8 summit of July 2001. Protesting what, the film is reticent to tell us, but I’m reliably informed it’s the presence of the summit in Genoa, a meeting of the heads of the richest industrialized countries, an anti-globalization protest. So far, so ‘take your side’. But with little pre-amble, not even a couple of title cards (it would never hurt to add them, but it could to set them aside) it’s hard to engage on anything other than the most superficial moral basis. The characters are painted so broadly: the protestors are well-meaning and congenial, hippie-like with their shared meals and group singing, and the police, the little we’re shown them, speak in hushed tones and stride around like pulsating erections (save for Claudio Santamaria’s conflicted Flamini, a family man who’s sensible enough to see dozens of unarmed people savagely beaten and have a crisis of conscience about his profession, and a young female officer who delivers one of the film’s fatuous Greek choruses; “and all because of a bottle”). Come the film’s centerpiece, a ferocious and prolonged police raid on Diaz school, in which dozens of unarmed protestors, journalists, and an old man just looking for shelter, are beaten, beaten, and beaten more (and for better or worse, both in fact, you do feel each and every hit) what can you do besides draw the good/evil line as thick as possible in your head? Difficult a film as it is, you’re reminded of Steve McQueen’s Hunger and with all its portentousness and barely fleshed-out insight into the life of a prison guard before we’re introduced to Bobby Sands, its famous 18-minute, a gripping discussion of the advantages and flaws of Sands’ protest, functions to effectively humble its lead. We engage, but aren’t forced to emphathise.
This shouldn’t suggest that Diaz is poorly-made. Co-writer and director Daniele Vicari is very adept at creating a strong sense of atmosphere and place, especially in the film’s early scenes. Similar to Gomorrah – with which Diaz shares producer Domenico Procacci – he knows how to use the broad 2.35:1 frame to best suggest the story of citizens and a city as one. One long take in particular, following an old man into a protestor’s commune, flanked by groups busking, performing, and generally going about their business, is concise and enormously effective, particularly thanks to the sound design. Later on, handheld cameras and occasional jarring, fast cuts create useful confusion and a sense of losing control. And despite the useless motif of a bottle breaking, the back-and-forth structure of the first and second acts, following one character’s strand until a certain point then shifting back to catch up with another, is interesting. Instead of having the effect of hyperlink cinema (such as Short Cuts, Babel or indeed Gomorrah), it allows us – or at least tries to allow us – to reach the Diaz raid early, then step back and forth and reassess the parties involved, knowing what’s at stake. It’s a singularly dramatic decision – United 93 for example uses no such devices, instead taking a near-realtime approach – but an intriguing one.
It’s only a shame that this directorial intelligence is being used to narrate a story so poorly characterised and imbalanced. Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, but the prejudices of Diaz hold it back from being a hugely involving, memorable or mature film. Instead, it’s shallow and reactionary, and you’re left with the nagging feeling that perhaps a considered documentary would provide infinitely better insight and allow its audience a greater role. A broad historical story such as this has no real ending, and having tried to dramatise it as Diaz has, by the close – when a new character is introduced purely to direct us to an emotional coda – it’s ironically, unsatisfying and directionless.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Stephen Glass