Reviews

This movie truly reflects the struggle for survival that all face in our economy. The impact of Thomas Hobbes is clearly evident in the story. As noted by Hobbes in the Leviathan, "the passions that incline men to peace are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtain them". One would want to believe that Horatio Alger stories portray some level of reality. This film does a good job in providing a sense of hope that everyone has the industry to obtain happiness, if they are only determined enough to go to the end. It would be nice to have a prequel at some point where the young son in the movie can play Chris Gardner as he was growing up to see how he got his inspiration and desire to persevere.

I show this movie to my friends when they visit from Rome. They usually hate it. As one character in the movie complains to Fellini, "why do you always show the bad aspects of Rome?" However, having been to many of the non-tourist travailed areas of Rome, the film is on point -- if also exaggerated. Only Gore Vidal is given homage by Fellini and not satirized in this film - everything else, socialist students included -- are fodder for a Juvenalian display of Roman characteristics which make this an eternal city. My Italian friends still despise the film.

This movie does not require a plot. It is a biography of Rome and the Romans who live there. However, the documentary is told through the perception of a non-Roman and lessons taught to school children who grew up outside of Rome.

I started to watch this movie 15 or so minutes into it, without knowing anything about the film. At first, I thought is was a very very early version of Fahrenheit 451 but it seemed too early. The focus of the film then came into view and appeared to be on the attitudes of the middle class and the psyche of NAZI collaborators. This movie can be understood and appreciated by school age children as well as adults. GIven the atrocities being committed elsewhere in NAZI Germany, the violations of liberty and freedom of speech in Vichy France provide a great perspective on a facet of NAZI occupation which affected people trying to retain their middle class structure. The characters in this film stress the importance of resistance at all levels.

I had to purchase this film after seeing it once late at night on a cable channel many years ago. Although the director can come off as an effete intellectual, his focus is on the Italian culture as it has changed over the past 30 years. As a passive observer of Roman lifestyles, this film is better appreciated when you have some first hand experience living in Rome - since the director's point of view seems to come directly from this city. In a certain way, Caro Dario is the intellectual version or sequel to Fellini's Roma. Instead of satirizing low brow Roman lifestyles, Caro Dario spoofs the pretentious intellectuals (like his traveling comrade who finally breaks down and admits he is a soap opera addict) and the couples who have read various philosophical and historical works to their only son every night to help him go to sleep. As the parents are rattling off the list of philosophers and historians "... we have read Hegel, Wittgenstein, Herodotus, read and re-read Cicero", they hesitate for a moment not recalling one of the authors and the son chimes in "Tacitus!". It was funny just appreciating the stark contrast of the family's existence and lifestyle as compared to the principles and content of what they had been reading to their son.

I call it a relaxing comedy because it depends on vignettes for comedy and then intersperses great scenery and music in between. The comedic moments are just pointed enough to keep the film interesting, e.g., the very precise translation of "mezzo scemo" by Jennifer Beals; the island of misfit parents whose children reign; and the inside view of Roman medical care. Now all that's needed is a prequel to Roman culture. We have seen the Rome of the 1930s through the 1970s in Fellini's "Roma". Caro Dario takes us from the 1960s to the 1990s. Perhaps a good satire on the culture at the time Verdi through to World War I.

I found this movie to be well made and meaningful. The acting was fine, but it was the plot that really carried the movie. Occasionally, a movie makes a connection with either a book or a previous movie which is uncanny in its similarity. When I watched Apocalypse Now, the connection was with Heart of Darkness. With Facing Windows, the movie could have been intentionally designed as a sequel to a black and white movie starring Marcello Mastriani as an intellectual homosexual in 1930's Rome. Across the alley was Sophia Loren who played the unloved wife of a fascist who was lonely

and attracted to Mastriani (without knowing his predilection). In the end, Un Giorno Speciale is of course a much more refined film, however, the elderly character in Facing Windows could have easily been based upon what fictionally could have happened to Mastriani's character after his days in fascist Rome. I would highly recommend seeing Un Giorno Speciale either before or after seeing Facing Windows.

Having been born in Rosario, Argentina, I have always been interested with

Che Guevara's origins. In Argentina, the word Che usually means "hey you" and is used with friends. It is usually considered an insult to use the term with a stranger.

This comment is non-standard in that I have not seen the movie yet. However, having read the reviews thus far, it seems as if the movie will meet my expectations. Primarily, these are nostalgic. A unique aspect of Che and this movie is the concept of a road trip through South America. In Argentina, this concept or dream is ingrained in all Argentine youths and becomes an obsession as you reach 50. I once saw a car in San Lorenzo (just outside of Rosario) with a map of South and Central America

painted on the car door. The map had the route which was taken by the owner on one such trip. In my own mind, the dream was to make the trip on horseback. This idea actually originated with San Martin and his horseback route throughout South America in the

revolution against the Spanish (circa 1810). One of my uncles actually retraced this route on horseback in his 50s with several other hyper-enthusiasts. This link is also interesting and I hope to see some references to San Martin in the initial part of the Movie where the concept originates for the trip. It would certainly be consistent and a great foreshadowing of Che's revolutionary future.