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How long has it been since a film clogged the box office, divided families and friends, inflamed souls to the point of being banned from a country for outrage against religious and cultural values, like Barbie in Algeria? From memory, the last to create such an uproar, at least in Italy, was Last Tango in Paris by Bernardo Bertolucci from 1972, who in 1976 had been burned at the stake (like the witches) and then rehabilitated in 1987. object that Bertolucci’s was a film with a completely different weight than the “advertising” Barbie (not only for Mattel, but also for other more or less hidden brands), which in one month grossed over one billion dollars worldwide (in Italy up to now 30 million), making its director, Greta Gerwig, the first woman for box office record. Barbie filled the halls, now languishing, with an audience ranging from teens to forty, dragging the reflexive overs, curious to understand the surprising fashion triggered by word of mouth, since Barbie has deserted the festivals and red carpets, has come out in the worst months for a debut, July, and she was chased by the press who embroidered weeks on the 50 million salary of the protagonist, Margot Robbie, and on the pink wave that swept everyone away. The boys did not wait for the judgment of the critics (lukeless): they were all ready because they follow Gerwig on social channels. Apart from the undoubted script blunders and a few excessive moralistic-feminist guns, Barbie is a film that has a clear message (the real problem with cinema is that it often doesn’t have it) and it works: it created debate, it entertained (almost) everyone and it gave a jolt to exhibitors who reacted well by multiplying the screenings.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (review by Roberto Escobar on page XII) on the father of the atomic bomb, another blockbuster with 285 million dollars in the States and 432 million in other countries, has also been in cinemas in Italy since Wednesday. Barbie and Oppehnheimer in America came out together on July 21, helping each other’s success. Potentially attracting antithetical audiences, they have instead given rise to the Barbenheimer phenomenon: that is, people have made the “enfilade” to the cinema to see them both, including Quentin Tarantino, caught at the cash desk with a double ticket.
In Italy we are not yet able to assess the impact of Oppenheimer. The theme could be less heated than in the United States, but on the evening of August 23rd in Milan the cinema was full of twenty- and thirty-year-olds who did not breathe for three hours of screening in the original version. Millennials and Generation Z have a new audience of cinephiles, who look not at the director’s date of birth but at the international reach of the films, at the ability to excite, to make people laugh, to reflect on crucial issues. And, last but not least, the standing of the actors. Points that Luca Guadagnino, for example, never overlooks. We may be surprised again: after all, who would have predicted a summer miracle for a film about a doll that has delighted and oppressed female childhood since the postwar period? New memes continue to flourish on the web that see Barbie watching a pink atomic mushroom grow or Cillian Murphy, Oppeheimer’s protagonist, crossing the pedestrian crossing with Margot Robbie, like the Beatles on the legendary cover of Abbey Road.
Barbienheimer demonstrates that cinema is not dead, but is alive and well if the films are good, so as to overcome the serial collectors of top charts (superheroes, demented, action blockbusters). In their small way it also happened in Italy. Rapito by Marco Bellocchio, perfectly shot, wonderfully acted, is still in the charts since May with its two million euros. Il sol dell’Avvenire attracted the “old” nostalgic Morettians and, in turn, the young people to understand what their parents were laughing at (the inverse of Barbie). In Italy and abroad it has grossed almost ten million euros. Barbienheimer teaches us which themes appeal to a new audience: individual rights, morals and the environment. It takes courage and good films (which rhymes with good scripts and excellent actors, perhaps even from the theatre). Cinema is alive. Long live the cinema!