Rare film, long invisible, The Terrorist of the Gianfranco De Bosio reappears today in a splendid restoration signed Rimini. In addition to the rediscovery of heritage, it is the outline of a frontal and nuanced look at what it means resist — and on the price to pay when ethics, politics and violence intersect in the fire of history. Behind its apparent austerity, this drama offers a mirror to our illusions about heroism and resonates strongly with our news!
Resistance engineer?
Engineer (Gian Maria Will), the nickname of a communist intellectual who became a combatant of the Resistance in Venice, is responsible for organising an attack against German forces. If the operation is a military success, it has a moral cost: civilians die, their loved ones are moving away, and the sense of his fight is gradually severing. His associates, from different political sides, weave a network of resistors more or less convinced, all gnawed with a thousand practical and moral considerations. Between clandestineity, guilt and ideological conflicts, "Ingenier" discovers that the struggle is not only directed against the enemy, but also against himself.
De Bosio never idealizes his protagonist. In a chaotic Italy, Renato (alias the Engineer) appears less like a hero than a man crushed by his own ideals. He acts, but doubtless constantly; He's knocking, but he's wavering. The camera, sober and restrained, embraces this inner tension: the scenes of action are rare, almost stifled, as if violence were already – in itself – a defeat. This city of Venice, draped with black and white, becomes a spectral theatre, almost grim. Exit touristic and romantic "Cité des Masques", Venice becomes the city of shadows, where every alley hides a possible betrayal. The light does not light up, it only disturbs the moral ambiguity that surrounds each of the protagonists of this feature film.
Heroes without legend
De Bosio paints the portrait of a rare figure in the war cinema: that of the resistant whose engagement ends up emptying him himself, leaving only a body, exsangued, dumped on the shore of a war that was not his own. By refusing all glorification, The Terrorist questions Italian national memory. To whom does victory come when the means have dirtyed the hands of those who carried it? The film allows itself an answer: to no one, or at least not without loss. It is in this tragic solitude that the strength of the story lies. The terrorist of the title is neither a monster nor a martyr, but a man naked before his own abyss. His final silence speaks volumes about the price of choice. The film does not seek to judge, but to make it feel: the inside collapse behind the burst of bombs.
Discreet but formidable, at first glance austere but immediately taking, The Terrorist takes place at the crossroads of intimate drama and political cinema. A feature film that refuses posture, constantly prefers trouble to certainty, human to statue. Restored and finally accessible in a beautiful edition at Rimini*, it offers a rare dive into the dilemmas of the Resistance, but also in the demons that still haunt Italy from the post-war...
* The DVD/Blu-ray combo is accompanied by a 32-page booklet as well as numerous video bonuses, including two interviews with Me Stefano de Bosio, lawyer and son of the director (2024, 44) and Daniel Currò, former curator of the Italian Cinematheque.
Data sheet
Blu-ray Region B (France)
Publisher: Rimini Editions
Duration: 95 min
Release date: 04 June 2025
Video format : 1080p/24 – 1.66
Soundtrack : Italian and French DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles French
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