This
isolated boarding school follows in the tradition of Lindsay Anderson’s if…, but it also has Eastern European
prostitutes and maybe ghosts. You are certain to find hierarchy and abusive
behavior there. That is the whole point. How else will these privileged young
masters of the universe get sufficiently ruthless to protect their families’
positions in society? Two recent transfers will rebel against the process in
Andrea De Sica’s The Children of the
Night (trailer
here),
which screens during Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2017.
Giulio
is the sensitive one, whose globetrotting business-leader mother has never
fully allowed him to mourn the accidental death of his father. Edoardo is the black-sheep
son of a South American oligarch, who never backs down. He has been through the
hazing before, so he just shrugs off repeated blows to his solar plexus.
Recognizing non-conformist inclinations in each other, the two new students
become fast friends.
Now
they just need an outlet for their rebelliousness. Initially, it seems they
have found one when they start visiting a nearby brothel worthy of Eyes Wide Shut. Eventually, Edoardo
suspects the swanky yet strangely hospitable club is part of the school’s campaign
of behavioral control. By this time, Giulio is completely caught up in his
professional/romantic relationship with the pretty young prostitute Elena,
which leads to friction between the friends. Then Edoardo maybe sees ghosts—and
finds the experience troubling.
Children starts off
brimming with promise. Both the prep school’s hallowed halls and the lush
hedonistic club are evocative settings. Boarding school power games are not
exactly ground-breaking stuff, but they are well executed here. The secret surveillance
also gives the film a thin veneer of topicality. Unfortunately, De Sica clearly
had no idea how to end his narrative, because the third act constantly lurches
from one dubious crisis-plot point to another.
It
is too bad, because Ludovico Succio is impressively twitchy and intense as
Edoardo. He is not just another prep school bad boy. He is a hurricane of
existential angst. Vincenzo Crea’s Giulio is a somewhat unformed skull full of
mush, but that is rather the point. It is also interesting to see regular
Dardenne Brothers and Eugène Green repertory player Fabrizio Rongione in such a
different context. Here he portrays Mathias, a school alumnus now employed as a
tutor and house-master, whose moral and ethical complicity is open to debate.
As one might expect, Rongione’s performance is cool and cerebral.
