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Persona (1966)
The fracture between being and what seems to be
The fracture between being and what seems to be
More than a film, a tormented psychic diary of the human soul. It is a hand that enters the body and touches the heart.
Two women compared, one silent by choice, Elisabeth, the other who speaks out of necessity. Alma, in search of humanity and confesses, lays bare her intimacy while the other is silent and... smiles. Clashes, illusions in a relationship that fluctuates, we debate between sets reduced to the minimum terms on which the splendid faces of the two women are glued.
The great strength lies in the dialogues, at times rarefied but powerful and in a cold, intense black and white, full of contrasts between light and shadow.
A heavy shadow, always present on the two protagonists, in their progressive fusion, until they permeate one into the other.
Every soul is full of dark sides and nuances, of needs, of the search for union, of rejection. With this experimental, intense film, Bergman touches many chords with detached crudeness, up to the climax in which Alma talks about the child that Elisabeth would never have wanted: the unspeakable revelations that arise in the human soul and that emerge relentlessly.
A hallucinated journey into the human soul, behind the "mask". A story made of pauses, of strong and conscious words, rich in profound concepts torn from the darkness of the ego, like limbs and thrown into the light.
The spectator is helpless and subjugated. A timeless masterpiece that makes its way from the chest, from the inside, to come out into the open.
Trolösa (2000)
Heartfelt, touching, painful
A visionary, slow beginning accompanies irreproachable movements, raw truth.
It's like reliving a part of "Persona". "Every word is a lie, every gesture a falsehood, every smile a grimace." Sometimes whispered, then harsh. Not a film but another shred of soul.
Trolosa is an exceptional, real and profound film. The characters' relationship with Bergman is splendid.
A non-obvious or moralistic test on a visceral and delicate topic.
I find it right that Ullmann has maintained the language of the Master, the language that she knew best, giving life to a splendid, moving work that touches deep chords of the soul.
Extremely painful.
Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (2011)
Delicate and true
Delicate and true film, real characters. Events follow one another with humanity, in wrongs, in reasons, in said facts and in silent facts, in fears, in anxieties, in anger.
Events that involve and blow furiously, upsetting the lives of children; innocent people who pay the price for the disputes of the adults.
And in the end, the tears and pain of the little girl, a verdict that never comes. Like two strangers, separated by a glass door in a wall of silence, the two parents wait.
Great actors. A great film that struck me in the way it captures Iranian culture, superstitions and common thought.
We're not that different after all.
Boyhood (2014)
I don't want to be a product of my environment
Through his gentle and whispered language, the narrative skill, the skill of the actors, and a simple and realistic photography, Linklater sweetens the bitter pill of family disintegration, making it swallow like a child swallows that bitter syrup, trusting in the cures mom's.
Linklater is not a genius but he is good, I like his films but I find this sweet narrative dangerous which, in addition to representing this sad disintegration, somehow idealizes it, makes it enjoyable.
The same thing happens in his Midnight trilogy, where here too the sweet realism seems to want to sell us the misery of a separated family.
I really appreciate that there is no representation of the usual stereotype of the incompetent or absent father, however this element is also part of the game of "healthy medicine": "separation is good". In fact, if the father were the usual "bad guy", the game wouldn't hold up.
The question I ask myself is how many fathers would live so happily away from their children?
I don't remember a modern film in which a family struggling against adversity makes it, despite everything. Usually it is the man who pays the price, living his life far away, seeing his children sporadically or it is the man who plays the role of the bad guy (violent, unstable, alcoholic, ambitious etc..), except perhaps for Hungry Soul.
In the era of gender, ethnic and religious equality, I believe an important piece is missing: no one talks about fathers, about men as such: either you are Captain America or you are Thanos and all those in the middle lie in silence, in their lives and in their suffering.
It is a forgotten category, not considered: the worker, the employee, the freelancer who gets up in the morning, works and lives for his family, with his merits and his defects.
A man like that is not attractive, he has nothing to say. His family who struggles every day, reaching old age with his wife by his side, does not exist.
Maybe the media wants to educate/influence us about loss?
Personally I respond with this quote taken from departed:
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want the environment to be a product of me."
Sono tornato (2018)
Where is the Homeland!?
Who really knows what would happen if he came back... what he would think and say...
Certainly some reactions in the film are focused and true. The Duce would find an Italy without identity, which has lost hope, "... with its head bowed staring at the screen of a telephone, in a state of perpetual coma, depressive, .... without dreams, at the mercy of the media social issues, which make you lonely, envious and full of resentment".
In any case, the film doesn't take off and loses, remaining anchored to David Wnendt's film, losing originality and credibility, attempting to fit the German script into the Italian adaptation.
Montanelli would not have liked this film which remains immature and easily takes refuge in comfortable morality rather than extricating itself from political construction. A real shame because an excellent opportunity was missed.
Fascism gave and took away from Italy. Today, as then, the Europe of the great democracies is a mess of incompetents, incapable of any long-term vision. Then the embargo of coal and other raw materials on the Bel Paese laid the foundations for the Rome-Berlin Axis, just as today the lack of pulse prevents us from guiding the continent towards clear and decisive choices.
These great democracies were able to make their voices heard in Africa and Asia, creating much worse social disasters, poverty and war, which still have their effects today.
I wonder with what courage they can still point to Italy and its past.
Quoting the film "I died to absolve the entire Italian people who would otherwise have been called to assume their responsibilities"
"Democracy is a rotting corpse. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys?" "Where is the Homeland!?"
One question, the last one that screams and hurts. Where is the homeland?
Torn apart by attacks, by political parties trying to dismember it, sold off to foreign multinationals in its excellence, humiliated by corruption and poverty, raped by mafia bullying, stabbed in the heart by pederast priests.
Everyone gets away with it.
The State is an impotent old man incapable of exercising its powers. Incapable of using them for the good of the nation but capable of abusing them to give to those who already have.
Where are the great works? Where is the development? Where are the cultural movements? Where is the self-love?
I don't want to go on too long but this is a political film.
It should have twisted the knife in the wound and instead it does exactly what is described in the film: it makes you laugh (not too much) because "the people need to laugh when the crisis makes itself felt..."
And we laugh!!!!!!!! It's better to hide your head in the sand!!! No? Let's laugh...let's laugh...
I want my homeland back!
Ferrari (2023)
A film that doesn't "run"
Important cast, lots of money as per the American script.
A period of time that is too short to be able to represent both the man and the entrepreneur; a format reminiscent of Casa Gucci.
Not a biographical film but the reinterpretation of a man, which has little to do with the real Ferrari but which seems more to say: we think that he was like that, on the other hand this film was inspired by a book, which has its time was inspired by another book. History is reinterpreted, not acted upon.
Weak screenplay, focused on family dramas and which gets lost in details that are not important for the story, the real one, such as the long scene at the theater with Ferrari dancing in the dress...
Slow, unremarkable, good photography, tries to shock or impress with truculent images after a fragmented race and ends suddenly, without a real end.
Few Ferraris, few Ferraris.
Disappointing.