I enjoyed this zany Italian movie. I like good "clean" humor based on bizarre situations, and this movie hit the mark, unlike any other film I've seen. In "Caro Diario" ("Dear Diary"), Nani Moretti directs himself as the main character in three chapters. He is portrayed as a slightly eccentric man who rarely smiles, but ends up pursuing somewhat odd pursuits.
In the first chapter, he rides his Vespa scooter in the suburbs of Rome. He likes to explore different neighborhoods and think about what kinds of people live in each. When he finds homes of particular interest, he makes up a story about his being a filmmaker and considering that apartment to be a set to make an excuse to see the inside.
I like the second chapter the best, where Nani goes to visit a friend in the Italian islands who is studying James Joyce's "Ulysses" for 30 years (if memory serves me right). He wants to share quiet time to work on his own project, making a film based on collected clippings of strange real-world stories from the newspapers.
In their quest to find the ideal island to work on, I found the funniest part of the film, where they are on an island where it seems everybody has a child. When people call each other, the children always pick up and inevitably the adults find themselves playing a game of "what does the cow say?" "moo!" "what does the duck say?" "quack!", the children urging them on and not passing the phone on. I laughed quite a bit when Nani finds three folks near each other all on public telephones trying, in vain, to talk to their adult friends; he pauses, then makes an animal noise as his contribution!
The third chapter is slightly less interesting than the other two. In this concluding portion, Nani is faced with a terrible itch when he sleeps. He consults doctor after doctor - skin doctors, allergists, acupuncturists, ... - and gets different advise from each. After collecting a large collection of creams, pills, and tinctures, he ends up visiting a surgeon.
It was a fun film that the whole family would enjoy, with a bizarre, wry, humor. Though I didn't enjoy it as much as the film "Amelie", the quirkiness in "Caro Diario" reminds me a little bit of "Amelie", especially in the 1st chapter. This film is in Italian with English subtitles. I would gladly see it again - it was a lucky video find! (7 stars out of 10.)
In the first chapter, he rides his Vespa scooter in the suburbs of Rome. He likes to explore different neighborhoods and think about what kinds of people live in each. When he finds homes of particular interest, he makes up a story about his being a filmmaker and considering that apartment to be a set to make an excuse to see the inside.
I like the second chapter the best, where Nani goes to visit a friend in the Italian islands who is studying James Joyce's "Ulysses" for 30 years (if memory serves me right). He wants to share quiet time to work on his own project, making a film based on collected clippings of strange real-world stories from the newspapers.
In their quest to find the ideal island to work on, I found the funniest part of the film, where they are on an island where it seems everybody has a child. When people call each other, the children always pick up and inevitably the adults find themselves playing a game of "what does the cow say?" "moo!" "what does the duck say?" "quack!", the children urging them on and not passing the phone on. I laughed quite a bit when Nani finds three folks near each other all on public telephones trying, in vain, to talk to their adult friends; he pauses, then makes an animal noise as his contribution!
The third chapter is slightly less interesting than the other two. In this concluding portion, Nani is faced with a terrible itch when he sleeps. He consults doctor after doctor - skin doctors, allergists, acupuncturists, ... - and gets different advise from each. After collecting a large collection of creams, pills, and tinctures, he ends up visiting a surgeon.
It was a fun film that the whole family would enjoy, with a bizarre, wry, humor. Though I didn't enjoy it as much as the film "Amelie", the quirkiness in "Caro Diario" reminds me a little bit of "Amelie", especially in the 1st chapter. This film is in Italian with English subtitles. I would gladly see it again - it was a lucky video find! (7 stars out of 10.)