The Last Ride of the Wolves (2022)

Directed by: Alberto De Michele | 81 minutes | drama | Actors: Pasquale De Michele, Alberto De Michele, Angelo Garbin

This docudrama is a unique experience in many ways. We follow Pasquale, a retired mugger who wants to make one last fire. Director Alberto Di Michele and Director of Photography Ton Peters are in ‘fly on the wall’ mode, and we often see little more than a continuously cackling Pasquale in a car.

That is more than a way of working: Pasquale’s words form the screenplay. As icing on the cake, Pasquale is the father of director Di Michele. Wait a minute, that’s very perfect, says the devil’s advocate. But that’s it for him. Pasquale is the perfect bird of paradise, as in Man Bijt Hond; Di Michele is everywhere, and is trusted as a first-degree relative.

Usually the camera films conversations in the car between Pasquale and other crooks; sometimes Di Michele is behind the wheel; the director can edit himself to perfection when the car he and his father are in suddenly speeds up to get away: the tension is natural and authentic, even though it is a documentary, after all.

Then again we find ourselves in a Las Vegas-style bingo hall. This is how Italians dress the evening country. Di Michele is a keen observer, and subtlety is an important aspect of this. Subtlety also in the soundtrack: Italian eighties music, often in the background – as if it were muffled from another room; nicely in line with the muffled engine noise that forms the heart of the film with the car rides.

Nice, and done in such a way that you keep wondering: is it real? The answer is yes and no, and that is the intention. Writer Paul Theroux once answered the question ‘Are your stories autobiographical?’ in a similar way. With ‘My Other Life’ he wrote a fictionalized biography of the first person in his books. Di Michele exposes a broken life, with his timid father as protagonist.

Moving and even existential, because aren’t we all shooting protagonists in our own lives?