Reviews

Totally unawares, Saverio, a teacher and Mario, a janitor of the same school in which they both work, travel back in time and find themselves in central Italy at the end of the 15th century. They carry with them an unresolved squabble concerning Saverio's sister, creating a lot of tension between the two, which will increase in the plot. From this moment on they will have to come to grips with the grotesque situation they find themselves in, trying to "hitch a lift" back to the future in a most outlandish way, using and misusing their foresight of the events taking place round that time, and generally making fools of themselves in the eyes of "normal" renaissance folks. Their meeting with Leonardo da Vinci is hysterical, when they become more and more convinced that the genius is in reality a moron. Another character they meet is Savonarola the heretic, who enjoins them to repent, before he is taken to the stake, eliciting some breezy comment from them. If it weren't for a weird kind of homesickness, they would quite enjoy living in this period, full of daring fashions and tantalising damsels.

The couple shows great chemistry and is funny in every respect. The psychology of their characters is complex and credible - for once comical roles with a depth. Basically, Saverio is an embittered petit-bourgeois forever attracted and rejected by women, envious of Mario, an easy-going proletarian every woman falls in love with. Saverio is scheming, mean and vindictive as much as Mario is naive, generous and forgiving. What a match of talents: Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi at the peak of combined creativity. Too bad they will never come back together for another joint venture. Or maybe it is better this way: masterpieces of this level cannot be improved on, at best they can be imitated. For this reason Non ci resta che piangere will shine like a gem in the crown of the best Italian movies of all times. Sadly not many people seem to have seen it, not even in Italy, where the viewers do not need subtitles to enjoy the hilarious juggling of the two actors with the language, but their body language can be universally appreciated.

If you miss it you will have to repent!

Benigni is capable of doing better (La vita è bella), but he can do worse, too (Pinocchio). This is a middle-of-the-road Benigni film, in my opinion. He is playing the clown - his favourite role - with great skill. However he is less than convincing in the dramatic bits. In this he is not helped by his obduracy in casting Mrs. Benigni as the female lead in ALL of his movies. Nicoletta Braschi is a weird liability - she can't act and that's it. Her performance in Life is Beautiful was just about passable (there are far better all-round Italian actresses, Marina Massironi to name just one, who would have made the character unforgettable).

Another great weakness in the script of La tigre e la neve are the cardboard characters; all except the protagonist, that is. The Arab doctor seems to be forever available to Attilio's whims, as if he - an emergency worker - didn't have enough in his hands already.

And what a waste of talents. The pretty Emilia Fox is sacrificed in a marginal, although potentially spicy role, the always magnetic Lucia Poli should have been given a more incisive part and I suspect Jean Reno is hitting himself on the head for accepting to be in the film. Benigni seems to be too much of a spotlight chaser, even as a scriptwriter, to give a fig about his colleagues.

On the plus side, Benigni's comical genius shines in comical situations such as Attilio's wooing of Vittoria in his flat, or his sudden appearance in Iraq as a Red Cross "doctor". However, some of the slapstick is so predictable that it is almost painful to watch (the gags about the suicide bomber and the mine field, for example), while some of it is plain irritating (the stalking - no laughing matter).

The choice of Tunisia, a north African country, as surrogate for the Iraqi background is bizarre: personally I have never been to Iraq, and I wonder if landscape, costumes, architecture, décor, souks are just the same, and if camels are that widespread. I also wonder if Jean Reno's Iraqi Arabic is convincing...

I look forward to another strong Benigni's achievement along the lines of La vita è Bella or his absolute masterpiece, in my opinion: Non ci resta che piangere (Nothing Left to Do but Cry).

Although distant in time and space, this work is reminiscent of post-WW2 Italian neorealism, with a sprinkle of dry Nordic humour. The grandiose setting of Iceland's north-western fjord region is the real protagonist: that huge white cone-shaped mountain looms in the background, very similar to Dante's Purgatory mount, meting out penance and confining the souls living within its shadow. The actors - like in neorealistic movies - seem (but aren't) taken from the street, they look completely natural, they have jobs and behave like real people. The title character is amazingly expressive, despite his shaved head and eyebrows. With a fractional movement of the eyes and mouth he moves us to tears or laughter. The dialogues are scanty, but the continuity makes it all very clear: Noi is a child prodigy, who is tied to an inescapable, remote environment. He is at variance with his teachers, but loves - and is loved by - his disjoint family. He dreams of escaping to an entirely different world, a world of sunny beaches and palm trees, taking along the girl he is infatuated with. But deep down he knows his dream is doomed: there is no escape from his icy ghetto - almost.

I was so embarrassed watching this film - I couldn't even manage to stay until the end. I was looking forward to a nice surprise: films made in and about Sardinia do not come out every day. Sadly my expectations withered slowly away since the very beginning. This movie has no pace, no acting, no plot, no breathtaking scenery, no likable character, not even the urchins in the first episode. It simply appeals to your "gut" feeling. Everybody - kids included - is appallingly repulsive, performs incoherent deeds, appears to be some subhuman being in desperate need of a shower. I could catch no underlying humour, probably my fault.

The first scene shows some dire, deserted interior, with piles of rotting material scattered everywhere, the most attractive fixture being an overweight sewer rat gorging itself on some unidentified revolting substance. In the second episode we are treated to a candid camera-like take of a cross/eyed shepherd milking the flock and making cheese while feeding his pig. If this is supposed to look realistic, the Sardinian cheese industry is going to lose a good portion of its revenues. We follow the sheperd's trip from his "idyllic" hideout in the mountains to a "trendy" eatery on the coast, whose cheesy owner performs a series of senseless actions and feeds his customers the aforesaid cheese, and so on and so forth. I really could not take much more of that.

I left the cinema feeling queasy, wondering if my indigestion had been caused by what I had viewed.

1 out of 4.

I am perplexed. This movie appears to elicit extreme - both favourable and unfavourable - reactions. All the reviews I have read so far find proof of its greatness or contemptibility in the viewer's emotional identification with either the female lead or her lover. I think they miss the point. This film is NOT about identification. It can be read as a (rather shallow) study in the devious sexual behaviours of some individuals who received devastating emotional shocks by their fathers in their early teens. As a consequence, they grow up unable to have normal relationships with the opposite sex. Sadism and masochism are just two of the possibilities in which their sex lives can be channeled.

Many movie makers have been fascinated by this subject, and have made a number of great pictures - Liliana Cavani's Night Porter, Thomas Vinterberg's Festen, Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers among others - but this is not one of them. It is a rather modest piece of effort, it is neither profound nor spectacular. Ultimately, it does not deserve the attention it seems to be receiving, at least in Italy. What redeems it from total mediocrity is Penelope Cruz's acting.

Mark: 4/10

An unknown director. An improvised cast. A mysterious country. Do you feel put off already? Please don't. The director, Edmond Budina, a factory worker in everyday's life, is a sort of Clark Kent to his alter ego, a highly talented film director with a fascinating story to tell. A story conjured up almost out of nothing, but which will stick in your memory for a long time. The story is about Niko, a poor but honest high school teacher with two children - a son in Italy who is sending money home, and a younger daughter who has attracted the attention of the local mafia gang. The only contact with the son is through letters - he never rings home. The last letter, which gets blown away by a gust of wind before Niko can read it, supposedly contains some vital clues. Niko is getting worried by rumours that his son may run a mafia cell in Turin and decides to find out if there is some truth in them. Thanks to a former arsonist neighbour he helped out of trouble years before, he manages to get on a ship to Italy, where his quest begins. His odyssey is, among other things, an allegory of the transformation of Albania in the last ten years - from a land of indigent, but starry-eyed people to one run by opportunists and crooks, who have built illegal fortunes on their compatriots' miseries, whose hopes are swept away like letters in the wind... 8/10

Agata e la tempesta is an agreeable, though half-baked, surreal dream. Agata is a happy middle-aged bookshop owner living alone, who causes magnetic storms when she's excited (making bulbs, toasters, computers, traffic lights go pop). She has a daughter in Spain and a saturnine "brother", Gustavo, nearby, who is going through an identity crisis (he has discovered he is not related to her, his real brother being a Felliniesque travelling salesman in the rag trade, with a handicapped wife and a collection of one-night-stands). He is married to a celebrity tv psychologist who counsels people in shaky marriages and enacts her own advice at home. Agata herself feels attracted to a much younger married man who idolises her. There are several other characters, all of them pulling in different directions. Each of the characters would deserve his or her movie.

This film has a number of serious flaws. Firstly, the duration - two hours - is too long for following the main thread of the inconclusive comedy plot. Secondly, It is miscast. Massironi (Ines, the psychologist - a great interpretation), is a wonderful comedienne with multifaceted charisma, who would have given extra depth to the protagonist Agata. Instead, this is played with insufficient conviction by Maglietta (whom I see far better cast as Ines), definitely too plain, overage and overweight for the character (who still walks around flimsily dressed, carelessly displaying her flabbiness. Is this really sexy?). Battiston (Romeo, travelling salesman in the rag trade), puts in an even more brilliant performance than in Bread and Tulips; he is unfortunately - and literally - sacrificed by a sloppy and shallow script. Solfrizzi (Gustavo, Agata's brother) is, at best, expressionless and his lines cliché. Santamaria, who plays the young lover, Nico, is almost laughable, with his stereotyped overacting. Which woman would keep a straight face at his courtship? Weather-beaten Jorgensen pulls off an unconvincing portrayal as the Nordic career woman infatuated with the sluggish Gustavo. Where's the spark? Two very pleasant discoveries are Volodi (playing Maria Libera, Agata's colleague), a very promising character actress reminiscent of Milena Vukotic at her best, and Lappo (Daria, Romeo's handicapped wife), funny and sweet, who may be following into the late Giulietta Masina's steps.

I somehow miss the Silvio Soldini of Bread and Tulips, and hope to see him back in full colours in the future. Overall mark: C-

A true "noir" if there ever was one. Its symbolisms touch on the night, the underworld, the colour of the skin of the main character, crime, perversions, despair, death. But it is a chant of crazy hope and rebellion as well, by indomitable humans who are able survive the direst situations and never forsake their sense of (black) humour. They are beautiful, immaculate souls being trapped in a world of darkly pretty things, with dirt deeply ingrained in it. They represent the invisible forces that keep a metropolis pulsating, the unobtrusive, unacknowledged flow of life in our streets, hospitals, hotels, brothels. London is gloomy and sordid like a clogged up latrine, but the characters' innocence shines in contrast and we are soothed. Impressive acting and directing. British film-making at its highest. 5 out of 5.