Bang Bang Baby Review: Italian Series That Takes From An Already Existing Cinematic And Serial Imagery
Starring: Arianna Becheroni, Antonio Gerardi, Lucia Mascino
Directors: Michele Alhaique, Margherita Ferri, Giuseppe Bonito
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime (click to watch)
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and half star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Bang Bang Baby Review: The eighties in the cinema and in TV series have tired us. And rightly too. But it is difficult not to be admired by the new all-Italian release in the Amazon Prime Video catalog of April 2022, which mixes the concepts of blood and family with the most pop stunts that audiovisuals have been able to offer us in recent years. Bang Bang Baby is the original series conceived by Andrea Di Stefano that brings the production of the platform also to the Bel Paese; the mixture of a commercial soul capable of being able to open up to an international breath like the distribution that awaits it on the digital window, but with its roots firmly planted on Italian soil, which restores the ferment of contemporary seriality.
Directed by Michele Alhaique, Margherita Ferri and Giuseppe Bonito, written by Di Stefano himself together with Valentina Gaddi and Sebastiano Melloni and produced by Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment and Wildside, the series stars Alice (Arianna Bacheroni), a 16-year-old teenager who lives in a small town in Northern Italy, in 1986. His life as a teenager suddenly changes when he discovers that his father (Adriano Giannini) who believed dead is actually still alive. It is for her the beginning of a descent into hell for her, who for the love of her father dives into the dangerous world of the underworld, being seduced by the charm of crime. When she tries to get out of it, it might be too late.
Bang Bang Baby Review: The Story
Although that of Bang Bang Baby is the least sparkling idea that could come to the creator, the show enters by right into the most interesting operations that the serialized industry is offering in our territory. An exploration that goes from the stigmata of Edoardo Pesce in the miraculous Christian (here our review of Christian on Sky) up to the realization of the first Italian prison drama with Il Re (also the review of Il Re is a click away). And which now continues in the first part of Di Stefano’s series to be released on April 28, and then returns with the second part on May 19. The existence of the young Alice, played by Arianna Becheroni, is marked by the death of her father, until she discovers that the latter is alive and well.
Her mother, in fact, deliberately kept her away from the man and from the circle of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta transplanted into the Milanese haze of which he is the boss and of which the teenager knew nothing, before finding himself completely entangled in the search for two dangerous goals: to find out if and to regain the affection of a parent who has been absent for too long. Too bad that to conquer her father, the young woman will have to hide a corpse; a rough road to receive love, respect and criminal fame. Dusting off visual insights that know of smarties, big bubbles and chewing gum, Bang Bang Baby does not innovate or invent anything that has not already been seen or packaged but handles the colorful tools of his story with such confidence that it is still electrifying, even if taking from a cinephile pool of references and ideas.
In this case, the love is that of a daughter for her father and the series is therefore configured as a story strongly influenced by the experiences and emotions of the protagonist. In the midst of the murders, mis directions, accusations, suspicions and plots, there is the world that the young Alice builds with her own mind and heart. A world full of references to pop culture, where music reigns supreme and where one’s interiority finds an outlet through powerful metaphorical manifestations.
For the episodes that could be previewed, the first two of ten, the director’s explicit will is therefore to stay as close as possible to his protagonist. He follows her, looks for her, goes with her into a real undergrowth full of characters as fascinating as they are dangerous. The viewer is unable to do anything but follow Alice into this new world, both for the aesthetic appeal with which it is told and for the strength of the feelings involved.
Bang Bang Baby Review And Analysis
Visually, the series is flawless, it uses suggestive images that come from the proposal of the unreal, so as to be able to dare with allusions and references, while applying recycled, but in any case, highly appreciable, solutions. A re-use with a personal touch, however the result of a well-identifying panorama. That of cinema and seriality that want violence in a fast key and proposed in an aesthetic variant, where neon replaces any other type of light, whether natural or artificial. A use of visual metaphors that favor the oneirism of a product that can thus tickle the synapses of the viewer, who is struck by the results of Bang Bang Baby, recognizing a peculiar character even if assembled with contemporary tributes.
The modernity of the product is inherent in the series, while carefully reconstructing an Eighties panorama made of gaudy suits and George Michael admirers, in which Alice’s everyday life made up of school desks and posters stuck in the room is replaced by gunshots and criminal pacts in which it will remain involved. A discovery of the origins of the surname of a father which the young woman will want to re-appropriate, initially not realizing how high the cost is and how small is the consideration that must be had of certain men. In the search for a new herself that mixes with the revelation of a past that is not at all immaculate like that of her family, with Bang Bang Baby the public will see how much a girl can dare, but even more an Italian series that finds a rhythmic and convincing way to tell the usual crime. Surreal and imagination mix with Alice Barone’s traumas for a task the teenager was not prepared for, but which she will feel running through her veins. She must survive by finding her own place, trying to figure out whether to do it with her family or, alternatively, completely alone.
Based on the episodes seen so far, it is difficult to imagine what implications the story will take. The feeling is that this can become more and more enriched and complicated, offering potentially very valid twists. What is now known, however, is that its characters are also the strength of Bang Bang Baby. This may seem a foregone conclusion, yet there are more and more series without protagonists capable of imposing themselves in the mind and heart of the viewer. In this case, in addition to the young and talented Arianna Bacheroni, protagonist in the role of Alice, to steal the show is the grandmother Lina played by Dora Romano.
Her elderly matriarch at the head of the criminal clan is as funny as she is capable of awe-inspiring. That Bang Bang Baby finds its greatest achievements in its female characters is indicative of how the series itself also tries to tell something of our present. It is strongly rooted in the historical context of reference, yet everything appears so modern and current as to arouse further interest in what can still be told. In short, some may perhaps find certain situations or staging choices excessive, but it is difficult not to share the opinion that this is a series full of charm, with a quality that can allow it to assert itself even abroad.
The story is fast, draws inspiration and strength from a pronounced taste for contradiction, sought and pursued with full awareness. The pop aesthetic, the loud and bulky music that blends Talking Heads, Echo & The Bunnymen and George Michael together. The meticulous intervention on the image, the camera that does not stand still for a moment, the work on formats, the TV that enters the homes and lives of millions of people colonizing the intimate imagination and the cultural arsenal. Everything alludes to the problematic intersection of philosophies of life which are irremediably poles apart but which cannot fail to communicate. Alice is first seduced by the pop veneer of a life that promises happiness and satisfaction, too quickly for it to be believable. Then her life changes and the restlessness of another world begins to appear. Darker and more dangerous, however, this is where she finds her immense love for her for her father.
Bang Bang Baby Review: The Last Words
Neon lights, the Eighties and Big Bubbles: the first episodes show that Bang Bang Baby is an Italian series that takes from an already existing cinematic and serial imagery but managing to insert a unique and personal soul. Not the usual crime story, but a reinterpretation of themes often faced by our Italic stories, but which find a new lymph with which to be narrated and, above all, staged with rhythm and color.
