Archive for the ‘Italy’ Category

What lies beneath

Based on an original story by director Luca Guadagnino (Melissa P. (2005)) and co-produced by star Tilda Swinton, Io sono l’amore (I Am Love) (2009) is far more than just another family drama.

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Just a tree?

Written and directed by Julie Bertuccelli – Since Otar Left (2003) – The Tree (2010) is an adaptation of the novel Our Father Who Art in the Tree by Judy Pascoe, and had the honour of closing the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

It’s a family drama set in Boonah in Queensland, Australia, where there is a huge Morten Bay fig tree that ‘whispers’.

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A spiritual journey

Argentinian-born French director Gaspar Noé – I Stand Alone (1998), Irreversible (2002) – challenges the impossible once again with Enter the Void (2009).

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Benito Mussolini – what a fascist!

And I’m not talking only about his political ideology, writes Gerald Loftus.

Nowadays, the term ‘fascist’ gets thrown around indiscriminately, especially in political circles. But in Marco Bellocchio’s 2009 Cannes-nominated film Vincere, we go back to its roots, and Mussolini’s personal fascism was clear in his attitude towards his first wife and their son.

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Rebel with a cause

Marco Amenta’s La siciliana ribelle (2009) tells the true tale of Rita Atria (Veronica D’Agostino), the 17-year-old daughter of a slain Sicilian Cosa Nostra boss and sister to his dead son, who in 1991 broke ‘the Family’s’ sacred code of omertà (silence) and aided anti-Mafia police with their investigations.

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Berlusconi, gently skewered

Nanni Moretti (The Last Customer (2003), La stanza del figlio (2001)), a cult director in Italy, brings a unique perspective to this take on ‘Il Caimano’, the second-longest serving prime minister in the country’s history (1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, 2008 onwards).

What is fascinating is how Berlusconi’s story goes hand in hand with the film’s other central character, cult director Bruno Bonomo (Silvio Orlando), who is struggling, after an extended absence from the silver screen, to turn the vision of young writer Teresa (Jasmine Trinca) into celluloid reality. Thus, in much the same way as Spike Jonze’s excellent Adaptation (2002), we are watching both the creative process and parts of the finished product at the same time.

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Summer’s wine

Gerald Loftus offers his view on an Italian treat…

A sort of Big Night (1996) for homebodies longing for a memorable midday meal, Pranzo di ferragosto won best film at the 2008 Venice Film Festival and other festival awards.  If I told you the film features four lovely Italian ladies, you are going to start thinking (1) Monica Bellucci; (2)…  If I told you that the actresses – who all appear to be first-timers in film – are at least over 80 years old, your interest might waver.  But don’t succumb to ageism, for this film is, among many other things, an ode to youth, or at least remaining young at heart.

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To grieve alone?

In this affecting, involving and occasionally harrowing examination of how grief can throw the mind off kilter, by renowned Italian director Antonello Grimaldi (Un Delitto impossibile (2001)), widower Pietro Paladini (actor/director Nanni Moretti) is spending his post-bereavement days on a bench in front of his daughter’s primary school. The story recalls Moretti’s own Palme d’Or winner La stanza del figlio (The Son’s Room) (2001), but Grimaldi’s adaptation of the bestselling Sandro Veronesi novel stands on its own merits.

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Death is a dirty business

In terms of cinematic markers for the Mafia, Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990) has now maintained a generational hold over public perceptions of the world of organized crime and its associated values of honour, family and tradition, which almost ennoble the atrocities committed by the Corleone clan.

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