Allonsanfàn

In 1816, middle-aged aristocrat Fulvio Imbriani, a Jacobin who served in the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars, is released from the Austrian prison he was incarcerated in after the Restoration. Authorities hope that he'll lead them to the secret revolutionary society he belongs to, the Sublime Brothers, having spread the news that he sold out its Master. Promptly kidnapped by his bumbling comrades, Fulvio is put on trial until they find out that their missing Master hanged himself days earlier, disheartened by the seemingly-final defeat of revolutionary ideals. The dismayed Brothers soon break up, with Fulvio returning to his family villa, parting ways with best friend and comrade Tito.

Here, Fulvio initially disguises himself as a priest friend of his, but after witnessing the family mourn his ostensible death, he reveals himself and is welcomed back. After a while, he's joined by his Hungarian lover and fellow revolutionary Charlotte, learning that she raised enough funds in Great Britain to finance a revolutionary expedition in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, currently ravaged by a cholera epidemic. Fulvio, however, has grown weary of his seemingly unending and unfruitful purpose, revaluating the eases of aristocratic life. He unsuccessfully offers Charlotte to flee to America with their little son Massimiliano, who has been raised by peasants to keep him safe. Fulvio's sister learns that the reunited Brothers will come to the villa to organize the expedition and secretly reports them to the authorities. Fulvio finds out that Austrian soldiers are about to ambush his comrades and sees the opportunity to get rid of them by doing nothing: in the ensuing skirmish, most Brothers are killed and Fulvio escapes with a mortally wounded Charlotte.

At her funeral, he's joined again by Tito and the surviving Brothers, oblivious to his betrayal and now followed by the Master's young son, Allonsanfàn. After learning that the expedition is still on, Fulvio offers to buy himself the weapons with Charlotte's money, with which he actually plans to escape to America, along with a newly reunited Massimiliano, but he's tailed by Brother Lionello and his partner Francesca. To get rid of them, he goes boating with the former in Lake Orta, where he claims smugglers will deliver the weapons. Fulvio then pretends to having been ripped off and tries to manipulate Lionello into killing himself to avoid facing failure, aware of his suicidal tendencies; Lionello doesn't find the determination needed but dies anyway when the boat capsizes during an argument. Fulvio is rescued by a group of libertines passing through and, to avoid being denounced to the Brothers, seduces and gaslights Francesca. After placing Massimiliano in a boarding school and using the money to pay the rent in the event of his death, he self-injures to simulate a robbery.

In Genoa, where the expedition should set off, the Brothers are moved by Southern exile Vanni Gavina, telling them how Bourbon soldiers buried alive his wife due to cholera, to the point where they leave for Sicily before the lack of weapons could be revealed: while Fulvio is unconscious from an opium medicine for his injury, Francesca has him boarded with the other comrades. After learning about the missing weapons, the Brothers unanimously choose to continue the expedition anyway, while an increasingly desperate Fulvio finds out that Vanni is an infamous criminal in the South for exacting revenge for his wife on many soldiers and fellow countrymen. As soon as they land, he once again betrays his comrades, reporting them to a priest in the nearby village of Grottole in exchange for his life. Fearing that the poor and cholera-stricken peasants would easily join the rebellion, the priest stirs up them against the revolutionaries, scapegoating them for the epidemic and highlighting the presence of Vanni. Easily recognizable because of their red shirts, the oblivious Brothers are lynched on the spot by the crowd.

Unaware of what happened, Fulvio is fleeing Grottole when he's joined by Allonsanfàn, the sole survivor of the massacre. Suffering from a head injury and unable to accept the outcome of the expedition, he raves about a utopian brotherhood established at first sight between peasants and revolutionaries, visualizing them dancing together the Southern folk dance Vanni taught them. Fulvio scoffs at him, but after hearing the town's bells ringing, he believes that his comrades succeeded and leaves to join them, wearing Allonsanfàn's red shirt. In this way, he's noticed and shot dead by newly arrived soldiers.

The events of the film mirror the ill-fated 1857 revolutionary expedition led by Carlo Pisacane, while the surname of the main character is an homage to the Italian author of the period Vittorio Imbriani.[3] Following the success of St. Michael Had a Rooster (1972), the film was produced by a cooperative financed by the State-owned company Italnoleggio Cinematografico.[5][6]

The Taviani brothers wrote the screenplay for the film, originally titled Terza dimensione (lit. 'Third Dimension'), while listening to 19th-century Italian operas such as Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti and Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth.[5] Mastroianni chose the role of Fulvio since he perceived it as "the typical antihero character I like to play".[4]

Allonsanfàn premiered at the Cinema Arcadia in Milan on 5 September 1974,[6] before being theatrically released the following day by Italnoleggio Cinematografico.[5] It was subsequently screened at various international film festivals, including the Directors' Fortnight of the 1975 Cannes Film Festival,[17] the Moscow International Film Festival,[18] the BFI London Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival.[16]

It was released in the United States by Italtoons Corporation on 1 March 1985.[2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Allonsanfàn.

• Allonsanfàn on IMDb
• Allonsanfàn at AllMovie