(CNN) -- On my first visit to Italy, at the age of 18, I fell in love with the country and its amazing history almost at first sight, as I and my friends sailed across the lagoon on the ferry to Venice. When we returned and found our camper van had been emptied out by thieves, I felt a little less enamored, to say the least. This was my first glimpse of the split personality of a country that is expressed nearly 40 years later in the title of my 2012 book, "Good Italy, Bad Italy," and is the theme of the new film I have just narrated for the Italian director Annalisa Piras, "Girlfriend in a Coma".
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Bill Emmott: "Good Italy and Bad Italy" represent spit personalities of troubled country
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In 1950s, Italy was Europe's "emerging economy" and a pioneering center for design
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Old demons, including corruption and bloated public pensions, nearly bankrupted Italy
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Today Italy's biggest problem is the country's refusal to take responsibility and change
That is the coma that filmmaker Annalisa Piras and I diagnose as the @placeholder condition: economic stagnation, yes, but also a failure of consciousness and responsibility, which is in effect a moral failure.