Caesar Must Die
Cesare deve morire

From acclaimed Italian film and TV directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (now in their eighties) comes this impressive hybrid of docudrama and classical theater. There have been countless productions of Shakespeare in prisons in dozens of countries, but this film--about the staging of Julius Caesar in a maximum security Italian prison--is a whole lot more than just a snapshot of what such productions are like. The Taviani brothers have cast real prisoners to play themselves, rehearsing and performing the play in a staged and stylized way. This is clearly not a documentary, but neither is it fiction, and it adds up to much more than just a gimmicky spin on Caesar. It is a very unique film that, in its brief 75-minute running time, presents a terrific, condensed production of the play as well as a meditation on male violence, and a lot of genuine human emotion as well.  The film falters sometimes when the line between the play and the reality of the actors' situations gets blurred; some of these moments feel forced, and distract from the otherwise riveting and subtle connections the prisoners make with their characters.