Hope for dialogue Dino Rizi’s painting “Dear Dad” develops Monicelli’s thesis, but not in the allegorical, but in the literal sense, comprehending the conflict of unclean fathers who sell industry to transnational corporations and children, the generation of the 68th, degenerated into primitive terrorists. In the late 70s, in connection with the activities of the Red Brigades, which became a terrible event in social life, many Italian directors of political cinema devoted their paintings to what was happening (suffice it to recall Elio Petri’s film Todo Modo). Reese shows the problem in his characteristic comedic refraction, mercilessly shaming the depicted social types: here everyone stands each other and moronic terrorist children and burned cynical fathers.
Offering the title role of Vittorio Gasmanu Rizi achieves contradictory results - on the one hand, the actor, as always incomparable, is able to overcome his comic role in dramatic episodes and reach a new level of skill, on the other hand, he pulls the audience's attention to himself in almost all scenes, eclipsing other performers who must be admitted to play poorly, turning "Dear Dad" into a monofilm.
Reese in a difficult scenario decision, sometimes pumping suspense, dramaturgically consistently shows us a social impasse, in which everyone is to blame – both fathers and children. The former bankrupted traditional values with their cynicism, venality and disbelief in nothing, the latter with their unrestrained nihilism and total negation of the past. However, Reesy in the final scene offers the viewer a way out of the impasse, showing the silent (brilliantly played by the actors) reconciliation of fathers and children after the disaster, the director believes in social salvation through the establishment of interpersonal relationships. And if in his picture at first no one trusts each other, then in consequence we see that there is hope for finding lost ties.
The images of social depression in this picture are realized through a dramatic narrative, presented in comic tones, in the social collapse and apathy of the 70s, this time not only the counterculture, but also public clumsy traditionalism, which turned out to be incapable of dialogue with emerging cultural trends. The way out of the deadlock of the 70s is seen in constructive dialogue, when the parties hear each other because they want to hear.