Review of The Secret of Santa Vittoria

I watched this as part of my "curriculum" for movies featuring intrigue. Although I've given this a star rating, as with previous entries this is less a review and more an analysis of character interactions to improve my D&D Dungeon Mastering skills.

The idea of watching movies to study intrigue was inspired by this Tao of D&D post, and subsequent discussion on Alexis Smolensk's Patreon. As always, if you care about the cutting edge of roleplaying games, you need to read Alexis's blog. Once you see how much you can learn from the millions of words he's given away for free, you'll understand why I send him some cold hard cash each month to get just a little extra.

Bombolini's Evolution

What I like most about this movie is the different phases of Bombolini's growth into a more responsible man and an upstanding member of the Santa Vittoria community.

Although Bombolini begins the movie as a hapless and possibly suicidal drunk, once he's talked down from the water tower and put forward to become the new mayor, he sees that the other citizens have some respect for him. He rises to the occasion and does his best to keep that respect. As mayor, at first he's able to get by purely on charisma, convincing the Contessa to heal Giancarlo "Carlo" Tufa and deciding that the citizens must hide the town's wine from the Germans (although it's Carlo, with his experience as an infantry officer, who successfully reorganizes the panicked, haphazard attempt at hiding the wine into an efficient, cooperative assembly-line procedure.) I don't think the movie explicitly tells us who suggested the celebratory method for hiding the last wine bottle, but the flair of it suggests Bombolini.

Once the Germans arrive (already over an hour into the movie, 1:10:00), Bombolini shows himself to be an inept diplomat, reduced to nervous laughter on multiple occasions and unable to even reprimand Captain von Prum for pulling him off-balance while cursorily inspecting Bombolini's mayoral medal.

Von Prum swiftly becomes all business, rejecting Bombolini's offer to house the occupying Germans in Santa Vittoria's town hall and efficiently giving orders on how the town will be run under his watch. He's in charge, no question about it: "You may dismiss the Grand Council. Curfew will be from 9 pm to sunrise, and I will see you (Bombolini) tomorrow at 10."

As at the beginning of the conversation, Bombolini is so unsure of himself that he can only laugh. The captain laughs too (less at the situation than at Bombolini, I assume) and marches away.

The next day, Bombolini has grown slightly less timid. At 1:16:25, Captain von Prum asks Bombolini for a complete inventory of the town's people, possessions, and real estate drawn up. Bombolini says it will take months, but the captain asks for it in 48 hours: "Can you do that for me?"

Bombolini tries to schmooze -- "Ah, can you do something for me? You scratch my back, I scratch yours?" -- but while he still fails to get anywhere with von Prum, unlike yesterday he's started to try, despite still obviously holding a weak position. And, of course, it may be that he'd be a little more bold if he (and the rest of the town) weren't hiding a gigantic secret.

Happily, it turns out that Bombolini's "clown" nature can also serve him in dealing with the Germans. At 1:23:00, when von Prum offers a "deal" of only requisitioning 80% of the town's wine, Bombolini puts on a pretended emotional roller coaster. He flings himself all over the wine vault, staggers to and fro, and even falls to the floor and kicks his feet in the air like a toddler.

Bombolini: "I said we would cooperate ... to avoid anyone shedding even a single drop of blood, but I now withdraw that guarantee unless we can come to a compromise. It's like paying somebody to sleep in your bed -- with your wife!"

The passionate fool act pays off by convincing von Prum that Bombolini is simple. At 1:28:00, a German soldier says to the captain, "They should be crying, we are taking their wine, I don't understand them." "I told you, they are children. They have probably hidden another thousand bottles somewhere and are flush with their victory," von Prum replies. The hammed-up reaction earlier was just what the German would expect of Bombolini, as an Italian and as a country bumpkin; playing to his prejudices worked.

I'll leave off summarizing any more of the movie; suffice it to say that Bombolini grows increasingly confident, to the point where he can even stand up to a deeply angry and threatening Captain von Prum.

Authority Creates Distance

At 1:45:17, Bombolini asks Rosa, his domineering wife, if he surprised her these last few weeks. She says he did, and she starts to cry. They exchange some more words, and Bombolini asks whether he should come home with her. She says, "No, you're the mayor. You should stay up there," and indicates the town hall.

Rosa is hardly the most sentimental or likable of characters, but the takeaway for the DM is to consider how a player character who's been put in a position of authority might unfortunately find himself suddenly at a tangible remove from people who used to be their allies. We wouldn't want to overdo that too much of course: if a player has earned an ally's goodwill, we should generally let them keep the ally as a resource to apply to for bigger and bolder schemes in our world. However, how allies feel about a player character when he's nobody can certainly differ from how they feel once he's somebody. Other, lesser NPCs will treat the elevated PC differently, so friends can, too: more formal, more respectful, perhaps even a little fearful.

Given different treatment as a default, we can also imagine an ally who doesn't care whether he's talking to a nobody or a gentleman. The players could end up immensely fond of someone who "tells it like it is." On the other hand, that particular ally may get himself in trouble with someone who's more of a stickler for proper protocol. The PC with newfound authority might even be made responsible for disciplining their friend!

The Captain's Outburst

At 2:04:00, it's unclear whether the captain forces himself on the Contessa, but it sure doesn't seem like she's into it. The next morning, he's walking away. Some flowers have fallen over his shoulder, and he doesn't notice because he's too busy focusing on a handful of the same flowers which he has picked.

He was angry, maybe even going half-mad with obsession, when he received his orders the day before. From that emotional state came his inspiration for the plan to take Carlo prisoner. Brimming with terrible confidence, he took the Contessa for himself. Now he's calm again, emerging from that state. Even his usual poise is affected: he's admiring flowers so intensely that he's bumping into walls as he walks. It's as if his half-madness transported him to the fairy realm, where, having received fey inspiration, he acted with extraordinary cleverness, quickness, and surety. Now he has now emerged from that state serene and tranquil (for the time being.)

I'm not saying we need to dwell on a metaphorical reading here, but it really did strike me as meaning something; I'm just not sure what. A better writer could pen a whole article about this sequence of events; I'll give it at least another paragraph. Should we interpret this as the civilizing influence of a woman on the captain? No, not with Carlo handcuffed in the piazza awaiting his fate. Is the Captain's morning bliss merely derived from the overwhelming pleasures of sex after months or years at war? That's part of the reason, surely, but I don't think it's all. I'll have to keep thinking about these scenes; perhaps I'll ask Alexis or read reviews by film critics.

Commentary on Fascism?

Is this movie a commentary on fascism and absolute power? I don't think so. A different, more cynical version of the movie could have veered into that theme: at 1:12:14, Bombolini says, "We've had enough democracy for a while. I am the mayor here. I am the voice of the people!" But nothing comes of that, if I recall correctly.

Wine and War

Finally, if you want a deeper look at real-life instances of hiding wine from Nazis, Wine and War is is a wonderful book about how vintners all over occupied France managed to hide bazillions of bottles from the Germans. The most interesting element, which isn't present at all in Santa Vittoria, is that the German officials appointed to manage the German wine-taking effort were usually men who had been wine importers in peacetime. As these importers had long-standing positive relationships with the French growers and vintners, they had no incentive to carry out their orders. There was a lot of malicious compliance, slow-rolling and other surreptitious methods of cooperating with the French to keep wine safe.