Doesn't live up to its promise.
A ridiculously ambitious project, director Moretti here attempts a commentary on life in the New Left by way of a water polo film. Adding to the challenge, the film is also an amnesia comedy. I can't knock him for the effort, but "Pamobella Rossa" doesn't pull it all together near as well as I'd hoped it would.

Moretti certainly succeeds in mixing pride, anger, and melancholy in his portrait of a personal involvement with Italian Communism. Making it a personal portrait is a smart decision; it prevents the film from becoming overly didactic or just plain boring. Mixing it with water polo is also a smart move I think. But the amnesia angle is just too much. Plausability is thrown totally out the window and the plot quickly begins to irritate. This is not to say that the films is without value. Quite the contrary, there are a number of moments of fine, fine film-making. But on the whole, I can't commend the film beyond the three-, maybe three-and-a-half-, star mark.

A real 5 stars movie
If you enjoyed Caro Diario, don't expect this movie to be similar: Palombella Rossa is a tough movie, but it is one of the great masterpieces of italian cinema. At the end of the '80's the Italian communists face a big crisis. Nanni Moretti succeeds in giving a clear idea of the entity of such crisis, in a movie which mixes fun and profound reflections. The idea of mixing politics and waterpolo is fantastic. For the non-italians: Nanni Moretti is the best actor/director we have, and he really faced a crisis as a communist, and, yes, he really player waterpolo.

Not as funny as Caro Diario, but just as meaningful.
Nanni Moretti's Palombella Rossa (Red Wood Pigeon) is much more complicated than Caro Diario, and not as comical, but it is just as humane and thoughtful. Moretti's view of humanity is endlessly sympathetic and wistful. By the way, you'll often see him compared to Woody Allen, although I don't see why, except that he, the movie director, is usually the main character in his movies. There the similarities end. Moretti is neither sex-obsessed nor a social misfit. He is a careful observer of human foibles who realizes that he is "one of us".