DEAR DIARY

DEAR DIARY (Directed by and starring Nanni Moretti)

After the seemingly endless parade of nutcases who have been making the most of their 15 minutes on the BBC’s Video Diaries, Italian comedian Nanni Moretti’s cinematic trawl through his own life is an inspiration. Anyone can keep a diary, but that doesn’t mean anyone else would want to read it. Moretti demonstrates that he has the qualities of a master diarist, making his ramblings intriguing and thought provoking.

Constructed in three separate sections, what seems at first to be a freewheeling and inconsequentially entertaining trawl through this lightly ironic, amiable film-maker’s life eventually starts to take the shape and form of a substantial piece of work, demonstrating that there is method in his madness. Moretti makes an off-beat trawl through the Roman suburbs, goes island hopping in search of peace but only finding television, and finally unveils exactly why these little pleasures of life have been obsessing him so. Despite its hand-held camera style, it begins to become increasingly clear that our host is blending fiction with his facts, and in the end, recreating unseen events of the year as he vainly tries to get a straight answer from doctors about his failing health, it gains a kind of angry power.

Or maybe angry is the wrong word. Irate? Niggly? Part of Dear Diary’s charm is that it is so sheerly light and likeable, without forgoing its intelligence. An idiosyncratic little gem, at times it is as rambling as the worst road movie, but our likeably philosophical host, an imaginatively selected soundtrack and the sheer sense of inspiration about the whole project ensure that it is a road worth travelling.