This aspect of his film making I feel reaches a terrible climax in Aprile (1998) where he is not only the director and protagonist but also the director of the film within the film and nobody else counts. I would not put it past any woman to never want to set eyes on an Italian man again after viewing Aprile, because of the image he gives of himself as being so self-pitying and in need of unmerited attention.

In Aprile the best role was played by the protagonist’s son a baby (a truly beautiful character) and in Quiet Chaos funnily enough we have something similar: the protagonist’s daughter, a 10 year old girl, is absolutely fantastically portrayed and wonderfully acted out.

Quite Chaos is a better film than any of his others, with the sole exception perhaps of The Son’s Room, probably because it is directed by someone else and is based on a book. This means that the story is convincing and there are more characters involved in the plot than the all-important Nanni Moretti. The story has got something to tell us about the way we live our lives: we can reflect on what makes our existence chaotic and how important our relationships with other people are. There are other characters that matter: his brother, his daughter, his colleagues, people he meets in the street etc.

As for the sex scene that Jason mentions with a little contempt in his review, I actually found it refreshingly realistic, precisely because it is not stylised and because it is an expression of his true state of mind: he is trying to be calmly contained but really is not. I saw it as symbolic!

But, I do have a question for Jason: are we not giving too much of the story away by mentioning this sex scene?