Five Moons Square

On 16 March 1978, around 9 am, a BR commando stationed in Rome's via Fani opened fire on the escort of Moro, kidnapping him and killing the police agents Raffaele Iozzino, Oreste Leonardi, Domenico Ricci, Giulio Rivera, and Francesco Zizzi.[1] One notable hypothesis for the kidnapping's motive was blocking Moro's Historic Compromise with the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which would allow the PCI to become part of the Italian government.[1]

Prior to Five Moons Square, Martinelli directed several other films, such as Porzûs (about the Porzûs massacre) and Vajont (about the Vajont disaster).[1] In Five Moons Square, Martinelli advances the hypothesis that the BR had been manipulated by the secret services to stop Moro's proposal and the PCI's road to government, placing it in the context of other Years of Lead events, such as the Piazza della Loggia bombing and Piazza Fontana bombing (both of them committed by the far-right terrorists of Ordine Nuovo), as well as the Italicus Express bombing (by the far-right terrorists of Ordine Nero).[1]

Regarding Moro's death, his daughter, Maria Fida Moro, discussed the outcomes of the ordeal her father suffered. She said: "I am 56 years old and since I reached the age of reason, therefore around seven years of age, I know with absolute certainty that part or all of my family will end up in a pool of blood. I always knew. My entire childhood was marred by the fact that my father and mother had threatened to take away my younger brothers and send them back cut into pieces in a suitcase."[1] She added: "I lived like this. I absolutely didn't want a child because I didn't want to start experiencing these things again. Then the Moro case happened... and this is our life."[1] She said that in 1974, after their trip to the United States, Moro had decided to leave politics but then his nephew, Luca Moro, was born in September 1975. She recalled an episode when Moro, talking to his mother in front of the nursery, told her: "I can't leave [politics], because they will definitely kill me, but I have to delay the catastrophe that hangs over our country for these children."[1]

Quando si dice la verità non bisogna dolersi di averla detta. La verità è sempre illuminante. Ci aiuta ad essere coraggiosi.
When you tell the truth, you shouldn't regret having said it. The truth is always illuminating. It helps to be brave.[4]

— Aldo Moro's famous quote and the film's incipt[5]

Rosario Saracini, a judge and chief prosecutor of Siena, is about to retire[6] and receives an old film in Super 8 format,[7] which was shot years earlier. The film contains footage of Moro's kidnapping which took place in via Fani, Rome, in April 1978. Saracini reveals this secret to his colleague, Fernanda Doni, and his bodyguard, Branco. The three passionately reconstruct the phases of the kidnapping. Branco notices a gentleman wearing a raincoat in the via Fani assault footage. In Milan, Saracini has the images enlarged so he can see the man's face. In the image, he recognizes him as Camillo Guglielmi, a colonel of SISMI (Italy's military intelligence agency from 1977 to 2007) who belonged to the clandestine military Operation Gladio. This leads Saracini, Doni, and Branco to start a new investigation twenty-five years after Moro's murder.[8]

New investigations are carried out by Doni, focusing on the hideout of the Red Brigades in via Gradoli. Other anomalies emerge regarding the three committees set up by Francesco Cossiga, whose members are all affiliated with Propaganda Due (P2), and appear to be connected with the American secret services. During the investigations, Doni's children disappear, but Branco brings them home. Further strange events occur, as Doni loses her husband in an accident in which her children are also involved. After the funeral, Saracini is in the car with Branco, and an aircraft dispenses toxic gas over the car. The two escape the attack. After a phone call from the chief prosecutor of the Republic, Saracini goes to Rome for an appointment in Piazza delle Cinque Lune.[nb 1] Saracini goes up the stairs and arrives in front of a door which says Immobiliare Domino. In the room, he finds Branco with other people. He now understands that the bodyguard is a traitor whose task was to spy on the investigations and take possession of all the documents of the Moro Memorial.[9] One of those letters is read by Cesare Barbetti.[8]

The film ends with a shot that starts from Piazza delle Cinque Lune, then widens from above to frame the whole of Rome. The maze of streets and alleys of the capital is highlighted in white, as if to form a large spider web, with the starting building in the centre. A famous aphorism by Solon appears superimposed. The closing credits are accompanied by an image of Luca Moro, Moro's nephew and the author of the film's songs,[11] who plays the song "Maledetti Voi (Signori del Potere)" ("Shame on You (Lords of the Power)" on the guitar. The background is filled with images of Moro playing with his nephew, who was still a child at the time.[8]

• Donald Sutherland: Rosario Saracini
• Giancarlo Giannini: Branco
• Stefania Rocca: Fernanda Doni
• F. Murray Abraham: The Entity
• Aisha Cerami: Ombretta Saracini
• Greg Wise: Francesco Doni
• Nicola Di Pinto: Antiquary

In his review for La Repubblica, Paolo D'Agostini wrote: "We all know that this film, on screens on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the macabre discovery in via Caetani, recalls the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro. With the civil awareness, on the part of director Renzo Martinelli (of Vajont and Porzus), that he is dealing with 'the most important event in Italian history of the last half century'."[2][nb 3] In his review for Variety, Dennis Harvey wrote: "A somewhat old-fashioned political thriller complete with graying stars and emphasis on talk over action, 'Piazza of the Five Moons' offers reasonably engrossing intrigue as easy to forget as it is to watch. Putting a fictive conspiracy-theory spin on Christian Democratic leader Aldo Moro's 1978 kidnapping and murder, drama toplines Donald Sutherland as a retired judge drawn to reopen the case and Giancarlo Giannini as his longtime bodyguard. Outside Italy, where events remain a vivid memory, smoothly mounted item will find either quick, modest theatrical playoff or a direct track to ancillary."[3][nb 4]

In his Palcoscenico review, Osvaldo Contenti wrote: "'Five Moons Square' is the effective demonstration that it is possible to tell important chapters of Italian history with a modern film language, full of suspense and action. In this key, Renzo Martinelli's film explores the 'Moro affair' with a philological attention worthy of the best Francesco Rosi (see 'The Mattei Affair'), but with a greatly accentuated rhythm and inserts of dramaturgical fiction aimed at fueling the pathos of the narrative. The author had already provided us with excellent evidence of investigative films with a high level of dynamism with the previous 'Porzus' (1997) and 'Vajont' (2001), but in this new film Martinelli surpasses himself because his work rewrites and rekindles the spotlight on the most dramatic Italian event of the post-war period: the kidnapping and subsequent assassination of the Hon. Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades."[1] He concluded that "the film makes use of the splendid performances of Donald Sutherland, Giancarlo Giannini, Stefania Rocca, and Murray Abraham, a qualitative poker of aces that enhances a film already of excellent stylistic workmanship."[1]

For Mymovies.it, Davide Verrazzani wrote: "Renzo Martinelli, now in his fourth film, confirms himself as an uncomfortable interpreter of our most recent past. After the internal wars between partisans and the Vajont tragedy, he concludes a cycle by scripting the Moro kidnapping in a thriller style. He doesn't lack courage, nor the means, but the profession and a fat wallet are not enough to transform history into film, and Martinelli remains anchored to the past as director of commercials, with the ability to find effective shots and the marginality of dialogues and environments."[12] He concluded: "The result is a film that adds nothing to the story of Moro's kidnapping, still full of secrets, leaving out any attempt at a civil complaint and instead aping the most popular television dramas."[12]

In his review for Il mondo dei doppiatori, Fabio Stellato wrote: "Renzo Martinelli brings to the screen the not new and not far-fetched version according to which the death of Aldo Moro was the result of an international conspiracy which included, in addition to the Red Brigades, the Italian secret services, and the CIA, with the aim of preventing the Historic Compromise that Moro was to reach and that he would see PCI and DC in government together; at the time it was, in fact, unacceptable for a Communist party to be part of the government of a Western country."[8] He concluded: "Set in an evocative Siena, the film is, however, not unforgettable, and if the historical reconstruction is detailed and well done, the screenplay that serves as its backdrop is rather banal and a final coup de thèatre (far from unexpected) is not enough to redeem it."[8]

In her review for Movieplayer.it, Claudia Catalli wrote: "This film by Enzo Martinelli, distributed by the Istituto Luce, is striking. It is striking for the impeccable precision of the screenplay, for the effective photographic rendering, for the meticulous and faithful historical reconstruction, as well as for the good interpretation of the actors and last but not least the great direction, capable of making the film slide along different levels, from the detective to thriller, action film, drama, historical, sentimental."[10][nb 5] She concluded: "Finally, the film is actually divided into two parts — in the first we witness a scrupulous historical reconstruction of the kidnapping, studied and dissected by the magistrates down to the smallest detail, while in the second, decidedly more intriguing, the camera carefully follows all the moves of the witty Saracini, silently spying at the same time on the opponent's counterattack, as in a thrilling game of chess where, however, there is no real winner. Or rather, the one who cheats wins, the one who manages to disguise his identity until the last moment; the subterfuge, the lies, the cobwebs of an evil policy win. At the final screen the message of the film is delivered, an unforgettable message for its cursed, raw truth: 'Justice is like a spider's web: it holds back the small insects, while the large ones pierce the web and remain free' (Solon)."[10]

The il Davinotti review compared the Moro affair to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.[13][nb 6] They described it as a "full-blown thriller, in short, with some gross digressions into the private (a flaw that was also partly the fault of the amazing JFK) and a heartfelt interpretation by Donald Sutherland. The reliability of the new hypotheses remains to be established, but if nothing else it leads to precise and disturbing conclusions. Aldo Moro appears almost in the background, a simple cog in a gigantic mechanism."[13] They concluded that "the hunt for the fateful memorial is still open".[13]

The opening credits indicate the collaboration as historical consultant of Flamigni, who was part of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Moro case and provided his interpretation for the reconstruction of the facts present in the film. The film's confession of the mysterious terminally ill former BR member would have anticipated some events that occurred a few years after the release of the film, namely the 2009 discovery of a letter, which was brought to light by a former police inspector. The letter references the mysterious men on board a Honda motorbike linked to the secret services. The sender claimed to have been a former secret agent involved in the Moro case in the service of Guglielmi. The presence of Guglielmi himself, which was declared as random, was in fact ascertained in the vicinity of the ambush in via Fani as early as 1991.[14][15] Martinelli stated that the man could hardly have been influenced by his film and that, in his opinion, it was a truly possible lead.[16][17]

• Cinema of Italy
• Conspiracy theories about the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro
• Kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro
• List of Italian films of 2003
• The Mattei Affair
• The Moro Affair
• Political fiction

• Gilliom, Katherine Greenburg (2016). Searching for Truth: Constructing a Collective Memory of Aldo Moro in Italian Cinema (dissertation). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 21 September 2023 – via ProQuest.

• Five Moons Square at IMDb
• Il caso Moro al cinema at Reteblu (in Italian)