Italians do it differently. The free cinematographic philosophy of the Manetti Bros.
01 February 2024
The cinema of the Manetti Brothers cannot be discussed without first mentioning their unprecedented and adventurous production system in Italy. In an industry characterised by economic interests that does not take audiences or products into account and manifests itself as a continuous reiteration of unchanging welfarist dynamics, their filmmaking stands surely for autonomy and freedom of expression. The Manetti Bros. have always tried to find their own direction, carving a path that expresses their personal and autonomous understanding of cinema: well aware that both from a content and stylistic point of view, a big budget does not always guarantee results.
The Manettis’ first work was a television film commissioned by Pier Giorgio Bellocchio as part of an anthology series entitled Un altro paese nei miei occhi (Another Country in My Eyes), it’s ambition was to narrate immigration in Italy through the eyes of immigrants. Torino Boys (1997) is about a group of young Nigerians who head to Rome for a night out. “At the time we were among the few people interested in hip hop music,” explains Marco Manetti, “and we frequented a discotheque called Soul to Soul, where we got to know not only the African community that populated it, but also the first Italian rap groups that were appearing on the music scene.” And it was the film's soundtrack, a veritable anthology of the beginnings of Italian hip hop, that would become a hit in Italy that year. The entire series struggled to make it onto TV but festivals took notice and Torino Boys was presented at Locarno and then at the Turin Film Festival, where it won a special jury mention. The soundtrack’s success led the Manettis to begin directing music videos for popular young Italian singers of the time and it was through one of them, Alex Britti, they met director Carlo Verdone, who with Cecchi Gori, offered to produce a film for them.
This was the Manettis’ ticket to A-list cinema. The result was Zora la vampira (2000), while its title paid homage to a famous erotic comic strip from the 1970s, its real inspiration came from William Crain's film Blacula (1972). It once again offered an opportunity to talk about immigration, but this time in the context of the genre cinema that the Manettis love most. "While we were watching Blacula," says Antonio Manetti, "we had the idea to deal with the theme of immigration in the present day. After all, Dracula is a Romanian nobleman who, in the novel, moves to London where he buys this enormous manor house near the home of a noblewoman called Mina with whom he falls in love. In modern times the Romanian would be considered an immigrant and all he could afford would be a suburban flat next to that of a penniless young woman called Zora”.
It was also a continuation of the Manettis’ approach: blending hip-hop cinema with several other genres and although the ideas of Torino Boys were elevated to the nth power. But, the film was a box-office flop. This failure, however, proved pivotal and paved the way to the Manettis’ real success, as they realised the Italian mainstream circuit was not suited to their filmmaking needs. In order to express their art and their ideas in the way they intended, the Manettis needed a leaner system, one without risks to the business but in which they could be free creatively to experiment and take chances. So, on a minimal budget, with a group of talented actors and crew, they self-produced a film. The result was Piano 17 (2005), an exciting and ironic action noir that tells the story of three people trapped in a lift with a bomb about to explode. "I consider it the real first Manetti film," says Marco, "It's our favourite, because it's the beginning of everything. It was the mature awareness that the mainstream Italian market is not the genre for us'. The clamour generated by a film that cost only €70,000 but visually had nothing to envy from high-budget films, attracted the attention of the great 1970s producer of popular cinema, Luciano Martino, who would prove to be an essential ally in the next stage of Manettis’ career. “Luciano,” explains Marco Manetti, “believed in us and gave us total creative and artistic freedom [...]. He was never our producer, but our financier. The films we made together we produced, and he kept the distribution rights. He understood us right away and put together this philosophy of ours that was a bit arty, a bit naive, and turned it into a business. He understood how the Manettis could be squeezed”.
The Manettis made three films with Martino: L'arrivo di Wang (2011), Paura (2012) and Song'e Napule (2013) – each was of a different genre but all shared an obvious love for popular cinema. L'arrivo di Wang is a science fiction work where an alien who speaks only Chinese is kidnapped by secret services on Earth. The film attracted the interest of fantasy festivals around the world and to this day remains Manettis’ best known film abroad. Paura, on the other hand, is a horror film halfway between the gore tradition à la Lucio Fulci and modern torture porn; while Song'e Napule set out to modernise the Neapolitan screenplay of Mario Merola in a modern, police-style tone. "Luciano had proposed Song 'e Napule to us," explains Marco, "but we were leaning more towards Paura. He told us that he would only finance the horror film if I promised that we would make Song'e Napule afterwards […] Paura did not do well, while Song'e Napule was our first big success in Italy. Luciano was right”.
In the meantime, the Manettis had also exploded on TV with the series L'ispettore Coliandro, the story of an over-the-top commissioner, cheerful and boisterous, who solves cases more by luck than intuition. Initially supposed to be a TV film, RAI enthusiastically commissioned three more episodes and it became a long serial.
After Luciano Martino’s death in 2013, the Manettis met a new mentor, Carlo Macchittela.Together they made Amore e malavita (2017), which, while continuing in the same vein as Song'e Napule, allowed them to set their sights even higher and tackle a new genre: the musical. "Carlo, unlike Luciano, became our partner and we founded Mompracem. He pushed us to think big […]. From there the idea of Diabolik was born”. The Diabolik trilogy represents the culmination of the Manetti Bros. career to date. For years, directors and producers have strived to bring one of Italy's most famous black comics based on the exploits of the ruthless thief invented in the 1960s by the Giussani sisters to the screen, but the publishing house was always opposed because of their disappointment towards the first adaptation by Mario Bava and Dino De Laurentiis in 1968. "According to the Giussanis, Bava had betrayed their character," explains Antonio, "and in fact the film, despite being a pop masterpiece, had little to do with the drawn Diabolik. We proposed a story that, based on the third album of the official series, the one where Diabolik meets Eva, faithfully reproduced the spirit of the comic and we immediately got the green light".
Diabolik was born as a trilogy – the second and third were shot back to back – but in each film, the Manettis experimented with different techniques and atmospheres depending on the narrative arc. In Diabolik (2021) the elusive criminal is seen through the eyes of his companion Eva Kant, who brings out his more 'human' side. In Diabolik – Ginko all'attacco (2022) the point of view is instead that of his arch-enemy: Inspector Ginko; while in Diabolik – chi sei? (2023) it is Diabolik himself who recounts the traumatic past that has made him what he is. Three films, three distinct but complementary worlds, in which the Manettis are able to testify to their love and passion for genre cinema, both Italian and otherwise, in search of their own dimension so unique and original that it places them in complete contrast to the comic book cinema America has accustomed us to.
– Manlio Gomarasca