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Reviews
Il caimano (2006)
Not the Moretti you'd expect
Two fore-wording items, before my comments on the movie are in order: 1) I am a liberal, left-wing, politically involved citizen, or better, what in Berlusconi's wonderland was actively defined as a "dangerous communist", a term used for everyone more progressive than Maggie Thatcher and less anti-communist than Augusto Pinochet ; also I loved Moretti's production since "Io" "sono" "un" "autarchico" and do believe that his SacherFilm is one of the few pillars sustaining high-quality cinema in Italy. 2) When this movie appeared, close to the election period, it raised a hot argument among the opponents for its alleged political content. Pointless. Oh, but we Italians cannot live without good, pointless polemics, or a juicy scandal, or some gruesome crime, possibly involving a minor and weeping relatives thereof. Here I think we're talking about a movie -like- raising hell on science research vs. animal rights because the main characters have a cute Guinea pig pet... This said, the documental and fictional content on Mr.Berlusconi is correctly defined by Moretti'character (he plays himself) in the movie as something that no one in Italy who wanted to know, does not know. Anyone who is motivated enough to read one in the plethora of books on the history and deeds of our Man of Destiny knows that even darker, more upsetting and obnoxious relations/facts sparsely punctuate his ascension to the financial and political scene; anyone who is otherwise oriented to believe his journalists and TVs will find in this movie the standard attack to the can-do, self-made, "defensor" "fidei" which can be dismissed with the usual reference to orchestrated, iconoclastic, communist hatred. I must say that the "J'accuse" against Berlusconi and the ethical degeneration of our poor Country is weak and "deja vu". From the man who managed, in just two lines, to represent the ineptitude of a political class and the discouragement of a generation ("D'Alema, dì qualcosa di sinistra... D'Alema, dì qualcosa....". Sorry, this can be understood just by Italians, I am afraid it'd take half a page to explain it to someone who didn't have the mishap to live in Italy in the 90s) I was expecting much much more... The movie is the story of a declining producer whose last chance to avoid existential and professional bankruptcy comes as the script of a movie on the Premier. Then there comes the well-known plot-over-plot concerning the making of the movie. There are a few hints on the scare that the proposal of this movie scatters on the characters coming in touch with it, but not half as effective as what "Viva Zapatero!" was able to do. The story of the producer is alas the standard "Nuovo Cinema Italiano" cliché: the marriage and existential crisis, the worries for the children, the problems on the job, the irruption of a fresh, lively, challenging feminine character (with the pale touch of lesbianism, here)... nothing that could not be found in "La "finestra di "fronte" or "Ricordati di me" or "Cuore" "sacro" (see my comments on those). Luckily we are spared the relations with the parents... Sorry Nanni, you have been dealing with much higher profiles on some of these items in "La stanza del" "figlio" and other former movies... Some of the developments are "phoned" (italian term for dead giveaway) such as the betrayal of the main actor (Placido) or the wink to the unending closeness among Orlando and Buy in the final scenes. I could not believe this from Moretti... The final scene is didascalic and ineffectively exaggerated, seems that the audience at the premiere was upset by it, but its content is not that devastating... a reference to true facts - e.g. the covered masonic "Loggia P2" to which our former premier was affiliated n.1816- would have been IMHO more to the point. I read on the TV teletext that a selectionner for the Cannes Festival stated that this movie overthrows "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Moore and will be a rage in Cannes... now, GIMME A BREAK... easy now, madam... On exiting the cinema, both sad and depressed, my companion overheard a housewife (sorry for the politically incorrect reference) asking her pal "Hey, was this movie against the Left or against the Right ?".
Crimen Ferpecto (2004)
Fast, funny, well interpreted
Now, this movie is not going to mark the history of dark comedy cinema, but believe me it's waaay better than a whole lot of stuff that has been strewn around by USA, French and Italian makers lately. The pacing is fast, well kept though with a few ludicrously foreseeable passages; the cast is really good in painting the characters, almost all of them well performed and denoted, in landscaping the interpersonal relations and the working environment, in adding the zest of surreality which makes the good of the movie but -at the same time- avoiding the downfall into clownesque. Indeed, there is a clear directorial decision to remove this movie from the "credibility" section, to the surreal/grand-guignol/grotesque side, but the operation is successful, if you do not mind...and if you know where the "FerPecto" inversion comes from, then you'll enjoy it. The very end is indeed below the expectations that the plot built, but you won't guess it in advance.
Cuore sacro (2005)
Good feelings at one-fifty per pound
The first question which comes to mind, after departing in such a disdainful way from a non-negligible amount of perfectly good money, of course is : "Why did the director select the two main characters (Bobulova and Poggio) amongst those blessed with a facial and emotional expressiveness ranging from tuna fish to Rocky Balboa ?". Indeed, if you discount the makeup efforts to provide Bobulova with reddened eyes and shades in the second half of the film, it would be a nice exercise to get a DVD, freeze the images and superimpose her faces in moments of puzzlement, fear, pain, anger. OK, maybe the nostrils shrink or widen, Rudolph-Valentino's-wise, but it's a hard call. That, anyway, you can tell better because the number of close-ups providing views of Bobulova's cute, possibly highly engineered, french nose is indeed mystifying. The director is the same of the beautiful Hammam and the nice Ignorant Fairies, but the "Finestra di Fronte" was considerably worse and this movie actually left me irritated, offended by the lack of intelligence and introspection. Please, do not sell me the ghost stuff as "poeticity" or "misticity"; if you want a movie dealing with inner feelings of sacredness, interior drama between human closeness and materialism, refer to The Decalogue or to the production of A.Wayda. Ozpetek has learned very well the widespread Italian technique of selling good will and good feelings cheap, beefing up things with didascalic iconography and redundant lines. The movie pillages from the Annual Review of Human Heartbreaking Cases and the Socio-Psychological Discomfort Newsletters, losing credibility with each yard of film. The cute girl is one of the less credible characters (and not only for those who had something to do with actual social cases) and even more irritating is how she enters the esoteric jangle which inturbidates the waters, wherein the plot sinks, trying to turn dead leaves into goldfish fakes. The moment we learned the poor darling had departed, both my fiancée and myself knew what she was after, how's that for an intimate tuning of souls ? Nah, maybe it's just a dead giveaway of the movie
I am also curious about the anti-nausea parafarmaceutics consumption involved by the movie takes, as the director seems to earnestly believe that tossing a camera in compulsive circles, swoops, lateral slides etc. can really convey to the public the sensation of being watching a great, subtly intimistic movie. I was more prone to thinking of the poor cameramen though, but well, maybe today such takes are unmanned
There are a few good actors in the movie: as usual the older ones, those who did not learn to act the TV-production way but come from a real actor studio and a movie career: Erika Blanc is possibly the only credible character, while Lisa Gastoni is unguiltily forced into a character which is the parody of the "baddie lady" in the standard Italian soap-opera. OK, since I put a "spoiler" warner, I can also tell you that the final scene (Warning: here's the spoiler! Guess what?: A camera slide on the mansion's ancient frescoes, where we see the dead Benny darling appearing in them -Duh!- , thus superimposing the figures of the mother which believed in the "sacred heart" and the girl which triggers the magical metamorphosis of an ice-cold manager into a lunatic with a pointlessly bleeding heart) could make you laugh out loud and finally walk out of the cinema towards a more enjoyable way of finishing your evening off; but since it comes at the very end, it really sounds as the last insult the movie blurts before a honest, righteous, total and blissful darkness restores the peace on the screen.
The Merchant of Venice (2004)
A good movie, a so-and-so Shakespearian movie
Al Pacino has lately been performing in a long streak of productions, some of which really bad, but this one is among the good ones. He is one of the characters endowing thickness to the emotional, actorial part of the movie (on the other side Shylock's daughter is, for want of a more proper term, disastrous). The problem is that choosing a rigorous lecture of the text (as far as I could tell, since I saw it in Italian) always is a difficult challenge and this movie, as opposed to e.g. Richard III by Loncraine, partially fails to that. E.g., the love scenes, those for which Shakespeare is appreciated and famous, are the shallower ones and Antonio's drama is underrepresented (apart from the final catharsis). The scenography and photography is indeed remarkable and the movie does not lull itself in the costume genre. The visual citations from the paintings, after Greenaway's Tempest are not so intriguing anymore. In any case, you'll not be disappointed. just a bit of a feeling that it could have been something more...
Mar adentro (2004)
Just on the movie: Excellent !
There have been many comments, so mine will be short. I won't talk about the philosophical/moral eruptive payload of the movie. I'd like to say that the actors, each of them, are fantastic with peaks of simple excellence for Bardem. It could have been dramatically easy to fall into smarminess, going above the lines, biasing the painful quest of a human being to a "pamphlet" on euthanasia. The balance yet is perfect, actions and development aren't given away at all and Amenabar plays with the emotional tension like a skilled violinist on a Listz piece. The photographic and scenographic support is accurate, delicate and perfectly harmonic with the context. It let me exhausted (other than moved/thoughtful) and sensitive as after a Finnish sauna of the soul.
Il fuggiasco (2003)
An awful movie for an important memento
The idea is interesting and intriguing: in a country (Italy) which never actually made the aftermath of political terrorism and the reaction to it, the idea of catching an outstanding case of degenerated/refused justice and making a movie of it was a good starting point. Unluckily, the realization and the acting is so given away, so trivialized, that one could expect little subtitles running, like "Look Jane: now the character is experiencing a sense of freedom!". The image of the family, the fianceé, etc. are so stereotyped and predictable that one really does not know what the movie aims to. Telling us there was a wrong done? I do agree and sympathize with the victim. That does not justify THIS movie. A documentary-movie, maybe, a "J'accuse" production or a White book. Not a movie which shows such a ludicrous self-righteousness in being "artistic". It might be that it's a RAI-cinema production, but the movie could perfectly be chopped in two-three chunks and televised with some good-food-for-the-wholesome-family commercials in between.
La finestra di fronte (2003)
A potentially good movie polluted by the TV-production style
I saw the movie in original Italian. It must be said that the acting and interpretation is most heavily polluted by the TV-generated trend to speak in a severely muffled voice, not moving lips, straining tones, as emerged in the "That's real life"-productions and "Let's-raise-our audience-with-a-few-tears"-screen-playwriting. The late Massimo Girotti towers upon the other characters for intensity, clarity of expression and intellectual honesty. The movie has some good hints, but (as in another comment before mine) it lacks a focal point and dribbles away in many plot-lets of lesser and lesser relevance, another trend dragged in from the TV productions, well known to Italians. A few drops in style could be spared to the public, such as the patisserie drag (Charm and aesthetics of cooking plus sensual payload of sweets, see Chocolat, Babette's lunch, Vatel etc.) Hammam and the Fairies are definitely more truthful, seems that Ozpetek has learned the tune of Italy in the early 2000s and is humming along... I'll give him a last chance though...