Caro Diario

"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.