Nanni Moretti is an Italian Communist, and always was. Of course, with a critical and bitter attitude. Nanni Moretti (and his characters, witness the protagonist of Bianca) is convinced that the world can be improved. He also thinks that he knows how to do it, but he has trouble convincing other people.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union Moretti asks himself (and a sizable chunk of the country) "What does it mean to be a Communist today ?" (in the movie Palombella Rossa, starring also Silvio Orlando).
Nanni Moretti must not be an extremely agreeable person in RL. Nonetheless his movies make one feel close to him.
Some masterful scenes from Nanni Moretti's movies:
- In Bianca the character played by him wakes up at night, goes to his kitchen in his underpants, grabs a slice of bread and proceeds to spread it with Nutella. The nutella comes from a Nutella glass that is about one meter tall. The surrealistic effect is heightened by the fact that the rest of the movie is entirely realistic. Only the giant Nutella glass stands outside reality.
This is explained by the fact that, to Italians, Nutella is not just a chocolate spread; it is one of the few things that the country agrees on. It is loved by all. It is what you would like to dive in when you are a child. It is what you suspect of giving you zits when you enter puberty. It is what you can finally buy by the 12 jar carton when you have your first salary. Nutella is entirely good.
- In Ecce Bombo (mysterious title, by the way), Moretti and his friends go to the seaside at night to wait for dawn. They wake up after the sun appears in the sky, and realize that they had been looking in the wrong direction - the scene is set close to Rome, and that coast of Italy looks towards the West.
Again, this can be taken as a metaphor of how Moretti's generation - in the context of Italian politics - was waiting for a new dawn; but it did not come from the side that they were expecting it from.