“MARX CAN WAIT”
a film by Marco Bellocchio
In his most achingly personal film to date, legendary Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio uses the occasion of a family reunion in his hometown of Piacenza to excavate and discuss a traumatic event: the death his twin brother Camillo, who committed suicide in the late ’60s at age 29. Through detailed conversations with his siblings, archival footage providing context about 20th-century Italian leftist politics, and occasional clips from his films, many of which were in some way imbued with this defining family tragedy, Bellocchio conducts a personal and historical exorcism. Reckoning with the push-pull the director has long felt between the twin poles of family and politics, Marx Can Wait is an attempt at reconciliation and understanding from a filmmaker in his eighties whose work has never shied away from the challenging or the provocative.
(from the New York Film Festival Program)
Honorary Palme d’Or to Marco Bellocchio
2021 Cannes Film Festival
“A wrenching and tender film that will be essential viewing for Bellocchio fans…illuminating the legacy of a difficult and fascinating family.”
–The New York Times
“Marx Can Wait is a crucial and profound addition to the filmography of one of the greatest living filmmakers, and it ends with a loving reconciliation with the past that is so moving and so convincing because it is so hard-won. This is a movie that has a rare kind of final cathartic authority.”
–The Wrap
“Straightforward in concept yet psychologically profound…a frank and revealing documentary”
–Variety
“No film I saw during the 11 days at Cannes affected me as much as this documentary by celebrated Italian director Marco Bellocchio. “
–Chicago Reader