Director: Leonardo Valenti
Writer: Leonardo Valenti, Fabio Fieri & Marco Marianucci
Cast: Fabio Fieri, Marco Marianucci, Silvia Niri, Giulia Romana Calvino & Leonardo Valenti
Everyone wants to get on the TV, don’t they?
The question at the heart of Leonardo Valenti’s long-archived first foray into filmmaking speaks to an audience-entertainment dynamic in a state of flux. It is one of the reasons that Valenti’s decision to finally release this movie 28 years later, the film still manages to resonate – more or less.
Home video had been around for decades prior to the production of Te L(e)o Comando, but it was produced in an era where the cost, portability and usability of technology had finally converged to produce a unique moment. With the technology pervading everyday life, the opportunity to be a star – without the green light of the television or film industry’s gatekeepers – seemed to present itself.
That perceived window of opportunity was, largely, a mirage. Making a film is one thing – but distributing it to a mass audience is something else entirely. While some creators managed to get rental stores and gas stations to market their work for them, most projects ended up in mothballed in somebody’s attic, or a seldom opened desk-draw – if not at the dump.
Looking back on his early steps into film, Valenti has stumbled on his own ill-fated VHS-era project. Now a prolific television writer in Italy, he has unleashed the work he co-wrote with fellow stars Fabio Fieri and Marco Marianucci – and done so at a point where the technology might seem quaint, but the concept has taken on fresh meaning.
We begin with main character Marco (unsurprisingly played by Marianucci) preparing for a date. But as he sweats over the minutiae of his outfit, weighs up the appropriateness of venues, and role-plays his behaviour for the night, he is distracted by the television. The blaring background noise of the TV set snaps out of whatever tedious daytime viewing had been playing to nobody – and reveals the figure of a lone man, glowering out in silence at Marco.
‘The TV Man’ (Fieri) has something Lynchian about him – and if Valenti had opted to use a different piece of soundtrack here, his appearance could have been genuinely unnerving. As it is, the vibe is consistently set at ‘modernised silent movie’ (the rubber-limbed protagonist has already fallen up the stairs, and had to break into his own apartment to prepare for his big night, all to wacky, upbeat music), which perhaps is for the best, as however ominous The TV Man’s intentions might be, he is presenting himself as a friend.
Initially, Marco assumes he has cracked, and telephones his lackadaisical friend Michi (Silvia Niri) for advice. However, after she recommends, he go back on the pills that apparently had helped with previous episodes, The TV Man remains. Bantering, flattering and at times pleading for time, he begins to talk Marco into helping him – if only to get the whole thing over, so that date night with the fabled Azzura (Giulia Romana Calvino) can go ahead.
What The TV Man wants is ever so simple. He wants to escape from the box that is currently his home. It is here that Marco quips that contrary to The TV Man’s wishes, “most people want to get into”television – resulting in an exaggerated, desperate laugh from the man behind the humming cathode screen.
Blissfully unaware of this – because Marco is played like a silent comedy protagonist, transplanted into the vague and sinister era of modern film – the protagonist agrees to help. All he has to do is put his hand to the screen, and concentrate on imagining The TV Man outside the television.
It will not be hard for viewers to guess what comes next. And the 10-minute epilogue which follows it is a slightly unnecessary drag, which feels as though it was written by committee to make sure each of the friends involved in this production has something to do before the final credits. I suspect Valenti will be acutely aware of this, and the copious other shortcomings which feature in the film – or he might have got round to releasing it with much more fanfare, and much sooner.
Even so, there is still a lot to be said for the film’s release. In its original sense, it is an interesting experiment in blending genres. Imagining how Buster Keaton would fare if he was transported into a (then) contemporary film, and was exposed to Lost Highway’s Mystery Man – if he was played by a smooth-talking Italian – makes for a unique, (often funny, sometimes unnerving) tonal dissonance.
In its new context – a kind of cinematic time-capsule, forwarded to the director by himself – the film itself has leapt forward like Marco, to illustrate the how absurdities of the world have or haven’t changed in the almost three decades since. And if we think about it, while the fidelity and user-interfaces might have evolved, the promises and trappings of the technology that we see as offering us a way to get into television remain the same.
Valenti’s film was pieced together using a single S-VHS camcorder, two VCRs, and an audio mixer. Now, we each carry around the potential for that kind of production in our pocket. But while making a film, getting into television, is presented as being easier than ever, being seen remains the real struggle. Tales abound of people ‘making it’ online, without help from the mainstream studio system – but amid the unfiltered sluice of raw sewage that the internet’s content mill has become, the vast majority of YouTube videos never even get close to 1,000 views.
A smiling man, painting himself as your friend, may come into your life via one of these devices, assuring you he can help you succeed; you just need to supply a three-figure sum for access to his online course first. Most of us will still end up marooned in a box; screaming, unanswered, into the void. And the harder we work toward the goal of recognition, the more of ourselves we lose to the (now rectangular) devices which stream our content; the more trapped we become in them.
Time isn’t always kind to film productions. But the gap between the creation and release of Te L(e)o Comando has added a level of intrigue, and the potential for commentary, to the film that might not initially have been there. This new horological element means that this forgotten offcut from 1997 is worth exploring, warts and all, in 2025. It might even be worth revisiting by Valenti himself; who could use the clout he has accrued since to reimagine this as the out-and-out horror, that it seems to be begging to become.