Morte di un matematico napoletano

May 1959: Renato Caccioppoli, a Neapolitan mathematician, spends his last week on earth taking account of his life before committing suicide. We accompany Caccioppoli, grandchild of one of the foremost anarchist theorists, Michail Bakunin, at his last encounters: with his exwife, his students at university, his old comrades from the Italian Communist Party (PCI). It is obvious that this once enthusiastic person is somehow disillusioned, exhausted. The police just stopped him, being totally drunk, aimlessly roaming the streets of Naples.
Director Mario Martone chose a real-life-drama to depict the life of mathematician Renato Caccioppoli, who lived in the first half of the 20th century. He was strictly anti-fascist, non-conformist, and quite an exccentric figure. But MORTE DI UN MATEMATICO NAPOLETANO is not a hagiography, that would reconstruct the life of this colorful person. Martone is much more interested in a pretty complex character and the very last situations in this life that is almost over. Great cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (LA GRANDE BELLEZZA, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE) creates images that mysteriously seem lost in a state between “wake” and “sleep”, between life and death.