Lo smemorato di Collegno

A middle-aged man who has lost his memory locks himself into public toilets to force the authorities to restore his civil status. Then people begin claiming him: a wealthy industrialist's wife takes him for the husband she lost in Russia, a Friulian refugee for the husband who abandoned her years ago, a thief for his accomplice. One by one the testimonies collapse. The film is not interested in amnesia. It is interested in how identity gets shaped by other people's needs: nobody asks who the man is, everybody tells him who they need him to be. The form is Totò comedy: a high gag rate, situations chasing each other, and one performer's face at the centre. The source is a real case, the Bruneri-Canella affair, which began in 1926 and split Italy through a trial that ran from 1927 to 1931 over the identity of a man said to have lost his memory. Corbucci turned that national obsession into farce. Sergio Corbucci directed, with Totò, Nino Taranto and Erminio Macario. It runs 87 minutes. Who it is for: viewers who love Totò and sixties Italian comedy, and anyone curious about a real court case turned into slapstick. Who it is not for: anyone expecting delicacy. The film is happy to be broad and never touches the tragic side of the case.