The Mattei Affair
classified U Spart of States of Danger and Deceit: European Political Thrillers in the 1970s
Please note: This was screened in Nov 2017
Co-winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, Francesco Rosi’s (Salvatore Giuliano) landmark investigative thriller is a brilliant interrogation into the enigmatic life and disputed death of one of Italy’s most controversial figures - businessman Enrico Mattei.
On 27 Oct 1962, an airplane bound for Milan carrying the prominent public administrator Enrico Mattei (Gian Maria Volonté) crashes killing everyone on board. At the onset it seems to be a tragic accident, but the further the subsequent investigation creeps the more mysterious everything appears. Was his death a stitch-up? Conspiracy theories abound, linking the death of this influential businessman who’d made enemies in the mafia, with his attempts, in the middle of the Cold War, to break America's dominance of the Italian energy market, sign deals with Arab countries and even court Russia as a possible trading partner.
A mesmerising hybrid of documentary and fiction, research and filming took Rosi and his team into dangerous political territory. So much so that one of his researchers, the journalist Mauro de Mauro disappeared, never to be found, presumed murdered. One of Rosi’s finest works and a compelling thriller, the film’s dispassionate and incisive presentation of the various hypotheses to its central mystery, offered an edgy, investigative insight into the dynamics of capital, power and corruption that led Italy into a sustained period of social and political turmoil.