Good Morning, Night

One of the most shocking acts of political terrorism (pre-al-Qaeda, anyway) was the 1978 kidnapping and execution of Italian Prime Minster Aldo Moro by the Red Brigade, a Communist guerrilla organization. Marco Bellocchio recasts this crime in a fictionalized version, focusing on a young woman named Chiara (Maya Sansa), whose enthusiasm for her role in the crime changes dramatically over the two months Moro is being held as a captive in an isolation cell (Chiara's paranoia and agitation grow so severe that even a knock at the door sends waves of fear through her). Much of the Red Brigade's nutty politics will be lost on viewers unfamiliar with this chapter of Italian history, but here Bellocchio creates a genuinely universal and extremely timely work in his dissection of the mind and soul of a would-be terrorist who is slowly losing touch with the goals of a crime-driven organization. Boasting an uncommonly subtle and deeply nuanced performance by Sansa (particularly in the climactic sequence when she reads Moro's farewell letter to his wife), Good Morning, Night is both disturbing and memorable. Highly recommended. (P. Hall)