I WAS A DREAMER: We Can All Do Better

From the appearance of the titular actor’s appearance in Being John Malkovich through to Bill Murray’s hilarious cameo in Zombieland, celebrities popping up in films as themselves is not an uncommon practice. Usually done for comedic effect, actors and other media personalities get a chance to exaggerate their public personas and really poke fun at themselves, using the audience’s instant recognition of them as an immediate source of humour and delight.

Despite this, one subversion of this trope that has never really been explored is having one of these personalities play themselves in a true story/biopic based upon their own lives. The only examples I can think of is Howard Stern’s comedic biopic Private Parts and Richard Pryor’s tragic docudrama Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling. Italian director Michele Vannucci’s debut feature, I Was A Dreamer, takes this unique approach to adapting Mirko Frezza’s real life story for the screen, by having the inspirational councilman play himself.

After meeting Mirko through an actor’s casting process, director Michele Vannucci translated the ex-con turned actor’s transformative journey into the short film An Ordinary Story in 2015. That film acts as the basis for I Was A Dreamer, an extrapolated account of Mirko‘s redemption through his change from a criminal enforcer, to the determined councilman he is today. Vannucci’s loose, cinéma vérité shooting style and the casting of Mirko as himself, really help sell the grounded realism of this complex atonement, but this unconstrained telling of events means the storytelling frequently gets quite sloppy, erasing necessary exposition in favour for reinforcing its moody ambience.

A Better Man

Under the misguided youthful sentiment of “living fast and dying young”, Mirko Frezza has just finished a 7 year stint in jail, leaving behind his auspicious life in his 30’s and emerging as a 40 year old man, a lapse in time that has made him realise what truly matters in his life. Determined to better himself and the other broken people around him, Frezza teams up with loyal friend and hustler Boccione (Alessandro Borghi, in a dramatically different role than his great performance in Suburra) to try and clean up their fractured neighbourhood. Coerced into becoming the town’s local councilman, Frezza tries to use his new role as a step forward towards recovery, as he attempts to patch things up with his estranged daughters, all under the thumb of his elderly father, the one person who keeps dragging Frezza back to his old life that he’s desperately trying to avoid.

The bleak visuals and melancholic soundtrack really accentuate the dire realm that Mirko exists in, a messy landscape of garbage, displaced urban arenas and a congregation of despondent citizens, all depleted articles that offer zero sense of hope or optimism. The main source of ambition comes from Mirko, who illustrates himself with a mixture of empathy and decades of regret that feels genuine, making his need to change quite noticeably believable, especially with the contextual understanding that this is an experience that he actually accomplished.

The handheld cinematography has a distinctive naturalistic tone, with the casting and locations being so accurate, the film frequently blends into docudrama territory, tricking you into thinking you are simply witnessing real events unfold, despite the structured storytelling and low-key soundtrack telling you otherwise. The camera always keeps close to Mirko, making every interaction feel tangible and keeping the body language in shot to emphasise each scene’s shifting emotional tone.

The handheld work gets claustrophobic at times and feels reminiscent of many independent drama directors who have worked with similar visual styles before, without any form of subversion or singular personality that makes I Was A Dreamer look or feel different from its cinematic peers. Fans of the Dardenne Brothers, Ken Loach and other European social realist auteurs may find some striking resemblances in Vannucci’s work here. Despite all these technical features being on-point, it’s the frequently jarring editing and script choices that makes this conventional story hard to follow at times, something that might ostracise casual viewers who might be curious about this feel-good venture.

Back and Fourth

Each of the themes that Vannucci explores, such as redemption, forgiveness, the importance of family and other thematic subjects, are represented by the eclectic assortment of characters that inhabit Mirko‘s post prison life. With each of these different people tackling a distinctive type of Mirko‘s shifting identity, the constant repositioning of the narrative causes the unbalanced feeling of linear disruption, having you question where the story is going and what people we’re actually meant to care about. Outside of the basic progression of Mirko, the developments and character arcs outside of him lack any real development and each feel quite incomplete. I Was A Dreamer‘s editing choices contribute to this muddled storytelling, decisions that causes the momentum to constantly pause in order to linger on the established atmosphere for extended periods, rather than the unfolding plot progression.

That’s not to discredit the performances of the supporting cast, a mixture of actors and non-actors, a combination that adds another visual contribution to the gritty authentic aesthetic. Alessandro Borghi, one of Italy’s emerging young actors, does some really nice subtle work here as Mirko‘s trustworthy partner, who hides his emotions behind a layer of cynicism and a pair of vintage sunglasses that hides his true emotional feelings. Mirko‘s elderly crime boss father Pierino is played with a considerable level of pity and dignity by Vittorio Viviani, elevating him above the stereotypical role of the selfish, indulgent criminal that he could’ve been interpreted as. The rest of the cast do well in their given roles, but none ever get enough material to really explore them to a greater extent, due to the cluttered story delivery.

I Was A Dreamer: Conclusion

Michele Vannucci’s debut drama I Was A Dreamer is an ambivalent commodity, one which takes the truly unique concept of having I Was A Dreamer‘s protagonist played by the very man that the narrative is based upon, and delivering it through a pretty tired and conventional method. The cinematography and soundtrack feel derivative of other well established European dramatic directors, and the plot is surprisingly straightforward in its delivery.

Mirko’s candid performance is terrific, as is the acting from his local cohorts of actors and non-actors, but his supporting cast is never given enough time to shine due to the rapid nature of the narrative, one which frequently pauses to observe the decrepit landscapes, rather than focusing on the characters that inhabit them. It’s hard to dismiss this movie as feel-good trash due to its genuine authenticity and indirect feeling of legitimate affection for its characters, but for the redemption story that it’s trying to tell, a little innovation would’ve gone a long way.

Can you think of any other films where I Was A Dreamer‘s subject plays themselves?