Why do you think Inspector Ferrando lets Nino live? How are Ferrando's fictionalized police reports similar to Mercury's films?

Why do you think Inspector Ferrando lets Nino live? How are Ferrando's fictionalized police reports similar to Mercury's films?

I think Ferrando lets Nino live because he saved him years ago and can't bear to take his life or capture him. He wants him to be free, as much as he wanted him to live as a boy. It is another act of fiction for him to spread the story of his death while letting him sail away. It fits into his own narrative. I also think it happened because Ferrando had no choice in what happened to Vincenzo. His guilt over that spurred his benevolence.

I think Inspector Ferrando was like a lot of other Italians at that time who despised the regime and didn't want to enforce some of the craziness of the times. To me Ferrando had a "heart" and just didn't want to see Nino have to be returned and punished. I think the scene where he shot toward the boat Nino is fleeing in is one of the best parts of Nino's story.

I think Ferrando was a very poignant character. I wonder what became of him. it was interesting and moving that he let Nino know that he was allowing him to escape- maybe that was the one act of humanity that he could control without having to surrender to his superiors whims.

As others have said Inspector Ferrando felt he owed to Nino for saving his life as a boy thus could not bring punishment to him plus I think he was paying it forward to others who may help him in the future. Plus as janines said many Italians had little respect for the regime and avoided enforcing some of their rules.

I agree with all the above reasoning about why Ferrando left Nino live. Also, I feel that the inspector knew he had "stepped off the path of righteousness...and he never found his way back..." years ago and given his terminal medical diagnosis he wanted to atone and perhaps even save his soul.

I think Ferrando let Nino live because he was basically tired. He was sick and tired of being treated like loser, because well, he was. But he redeemed himself by not shooting Nino.

There was a debt to be repaid- even though it was never asked of him. I think that he did not like the system he found himself enforcing, but felt powerless. Here was a chance to rebel, pay a debt and give someone the chance to have better life, essentially to do the right thing.

I think Fernando let Nino go because he knew he was going to die soon and he wanted to repay a debt before he went. He also felt like he had failed at so many things in his profession, and I felt like he had a genuine good heart and wanted to do something that was positive before he did die.

Ferrando knew Nino because of always taking the police photographs to Nino's business to be developed and printed. Ferrando, as others have said, was tired of being disrespected by his superiors and colleagues. Knowing that he had a terminal illness, I think after realizing that "12-18 months was a very long time indeed", he decided to spare Nino because, not only was he his friend, but because no one would ever look for him after Ferrando wrote his police report. He was always asked to "massage" the police reports when the truth was better not known. So Ferrando decided he would use his gift of writing believable false police reports to shut down a manhunt before it even started and save Nino. I think he saw this as a rare opportunity to control his situation and save his friend.

Ferrando knew was it was like to be handed a death sentence. He was facing his own mortality and his future was finite. He did not have the heart to impose the same sentence on Nino. He knew that if Nino could escape, he might have a chance to make a life for himself somewhere else. And perhaps (although Marra didn't spell this out), Ferrando saw a possibility of a legacy for himself of Ferrando. Since they locked eyes and he knew Nino saw waht he did, he may have -- even at an unconscious level -- hoped that he would be remembered fondly by someone because of the mercy he showed Nino. Having spent many years with a law enforcement agency, I am well versed in the importance of accurate reporting in that context, so I was entertained by the ways in which he falsified the reports he drafted. He was very clever and experienced, with the ability to write reports that were seen as above reproach and believable. Indeed, his report did prove to be reliable, ultimately! Just like the filmmakers in Hollywood, he constructed a good story and it drew readers/his audiences in. Bravo, Ferrando!

I think Ferrando had a core of decency in him, and, with a limited time to live himself, he saw a way to give life to another. He'd know Nino for all of Nino's life and they were friends of a sort. It's hard to kill a friend under any circumstances, and in my opinion sparing Nino was redemptive for Ferrando. He knew he'd get away with it; he staged it perfectly, right down to shooting his gun to get gunshot residue on himself. Since he knew he's be writing the report, he had no fears that anyone would doubt him at all and no one would look for Nino.

Oh, and Ferrando's reports are like Mercury's pictures because they are both fictional and imaginative, even when there is a kernel of truth.