The Monsters Today

PlotI mostri oggi may be regarded as a third chapter that follows the famous episode films I mostri (Opiate '67), directed by Dino Risi in 1963, and I nuovi mostri (The New Monsters), directed by Dino Risi, Mario Monicelli and Ettore Scola – two cornerstones in Italian sketch comedy. In this film too the many vices, weaknesses and fears of contemporary Italy are parodied in sixteen caustic episodes. Years pass, decades pass, but the defects afflicting Italy are always the same: cynicism, greed, indifference, prissiness, roguery, conceit, and so so on. Here they are illustrated in episodes that are comical, bitter, grotesque and striking.