A welcome on board to Three Monkeys’ newest blogger – Brendan Coffey – whose Between Boston and Berlin blog is now online. One of Coffey’s first pieces is a thumbs up for the new Christopher Nolan Batman Film – The Dark Knight. The film, though, has a radically different context here in Italy, under the present government.

And while you may think I’m stretching a point, it’s one already made by an emminent critic – Interior Minister Roberto Maroni – who discussed the film at length with journalist Marco Romani recently.

As if the film were some coded message to the law, order, and vigilantes brigade often associated with Maroni’s lega party, Nolan’s film is entitled in Italian ‘il cavaliere oscuro’ – Berlusconi has always been jokingly refered to as ‘il cavaliere’. Ironically the head of the mafia in the film is called Maroni.

Maroni, in interview, though, is quick to dismiss any parallels between the film and modern-day Italy: “The beauty of the Joker is that you can see him, and fight him. What preoccupies me, though, is invisible crime, that which provokes sympathy and which doesn’t arouse a unanimously negative reaction”.

I couldn’t agree more with the jazz-playing leading light of the lega – though perhaps with different villains in mind. Maroni’s invisible enemies are not the various members of parliament that have been charged with corruption and links to the mafia, but rather gypsy children who, along with the adults, are currently being forced to give fingerprint samples to the authorities.

Final batpoint – have a look at the logo for the new film – could it sum up Berluska’s Italy better?