In my view, one of the best films to come out of Italy in the last 20 years (although, strictly speaking, the director is Swiss Italian). Set in Milan in the summer of 1989 against the background of the fall of communism, the film examines the lives of four frustrated individuals whose lives intertwine:- a market researcher whose great ambition is to be an anthropologist and write about an unknown tribe in some remote island (but is it a real ambition or just a conveniently unrealisable dream?); a nurse who does not want emotional ties but meets two men, neither of whom are what they seem; a freelance translator unable to adapt to a big city when her husband is transferred to Milan; and a scientist who in his spare time watches videos of tennis matches from the Borg/MacEnroe era (although even he is beginning to find it a bit of a bore). Only one of them ultimately has the courage to make anything like a radical break with the past.
It is difficult to say exactly why I thought this film was so good. It's not rip-roaringly funny nor tear-jerkingly sad and I wouldn't say it is particularly deep. The fact that I live in Milan may have influenced me. Nevertheless, it is well-acted, moves at a fast pace (bearing in mind that it's not a car-chase type movie) and is ultimately thought-provoking. The characters are ordinary people with normal 3-D personalities, i.e. no one is jet-set, no one is exceedingly rich. The characters are neither irredeemably wicked nor goodie-goodies, and I personally had mixed feelings about all of them.
The title is intended to be ironic: despite the triumph of the West and of capitalism in 1989, life in the affluent West is not automatically a bed of roses and happines can be as elusive as anywhere else. Those who lived through communism in eastern Europe and elsewhere may take issue.
It is difficult to say exactly why I thought this film was so good. It's not rip-roaringly funny nor tear-jerkingly sad and I wouldn't say it is particularly deep. The fact that I live in Milan may have influenced me. Nevertheless, it is well-acted, moves at a fast pace (bearing in mind that it's not a car-chase type movie) and is ultimately thought-provoking. The characters are ordinary people with normal 3-D personalities, i.e. no one is jet-set, no one is exceedingly rich. The characters are neither irredeemably wicked nor goodie-goodies, and I personally had mixed feelings about all of them.
The title is intended to be ironic: despite the triumph of the West and of capitalism in 1989, life in the affluent West is not automatically a bed of roses and happines can be as elusive as anywhere else. Those who lived through communism in eastern Europe and elsewhere may take issue.
