Caro Diario

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"On my Vespa".


Caro Diario (Dear Diary) is an Italian film directed by Nanni Moretti and released in 1993. Divided in three parts, it is a Slice of Life story following Moretti himself through a few months of his life, as he spends a carefree summer in Rome, visits a friend in the Aeolian Islands, and goes through a series of medical treatments for a condition that baffles mainstream and alternative doctors alike.


Tropes used in Caro Diario include:


  • As Herself: Moretti chances upon the American actress Jennifer Beals and enthusiastically gushes about seeing her in Flashdance.
  • Blatant Lies: In order to get in apartment complexes he's curious about, Moretti claims he's looking for locations for a movie. When asked about the plot, he improvises on the spur of the moment a preposterous synopsis about "a pastry chef... who's a Trotskyist... in Italy in the 1950s. A musical."
  • Brick Joke: The end of Moretti's next film, Aprile, shows him shooting the fictional musical about a Trotskyist pastry chef.
  • Diary
  • First-Person Smartass
  • Fridge Logic: Hold on, this is Rome in the summer--how could the streets possibly be this empty?
  • Hollywood Tone Deaf: Moretti when he provides impromptu backup vocals to a live band.
  • Homage: At the end of the first part, Moretti visits the place where one of his favorite filmmakers, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was killed.
  • The Narrator: Moretti narrates the story in voice-over.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: The third part of the film was inspired by Moretti's genuine medical condition.
  • Slice of Life
  • Take That: Moretti has strong opinions about both art-house Italian cinema and horror flicks, and fantasizes about tormenting a film critic who praised Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which he personally hated.