cafe Pellicola - window to fine italian cinema

You better leave now if you want to catch this train.

If we do a good job for this worldwide company, we’ll be on the gravy train for more projects.

Sorry, for this class the train has already left the station - registration is over.

Thanks, but you’ve just interrupted my train of thoughts.

Trains offer a rich canvas for conveying many human contexts, challenges, disappointments and hopes. So it’s only natural that cinema would utilize this eclectic locomotive in various ways. And indeed, trains and train stations play a highly emotional role in Italian cinema and beyond. The dramatic sense of departure between loved ones towards the unknown future (I Vitelloni, Federico Fellini - 1953), the arrival to a new place and the constant search for the ever-waiting relative (Rocco and his Brothers – Luchino Visconti - 1960) – and many more.

Whereas in most films the train environment appears only in a few scenes to underscore a particular emotional development, then in this film the train is brought front and center and functions as the constant backdrop for the plot throughout the whole film.

Moreover, this film provide a cross-cultural triptych of three prominent directors; Ermanno Olmi (Italy), Abbas Kiarostami (Iran), and Ken Loach (Britain). Each brings his own artistic sensibilities to weave a story with characters riding the train from central Europe to Rome. The beauty of the film is how these characters transition from one story driven by one director to another. For that matter, it’s definitely worth viewing the Behind the Scenes bonus content to appreciate the careful planning that was involved in weaving these three independent plots into one cohesive artwork.

Often trains’ linear nature represent a metaphor for life’s winding rail where each station is another milestone en route to a final destination, that once accomplished nirvana supposedly descends. The same logic is also apparent in this film where Olmi, leveraging his signature style of using present to past flashbacks (see The Enagaged - I Fidanzati – 1963), Kiarostami by creating a somber brooding mood about past events and Loach by planting series of human miscommunications that unravel upon arrival to Rome.

No doubt, trains are vibrant microcosms where ephemeral human stories are produced every day. Think about it the next time you ride the train…

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The film’s theme song by Elisa

Is Italian cinema dead?

Not by a long shot. Yes, current Italian filmmakers have been facing this incredible challenge of reinventing Italian cinema in the face of its grand history. No matter how you slice it, it could definitely be tough surpassing the Fellinis or the De Sicas of the world. Yet, different times with different audiences call for fresh new perspectives and new cinematic ideas.

And that’s exactly why this film by Gabriele Muccino, is such a great delight. It opens a fresh new window to what modern Italy looks like today. In the center of this film is the story of a normal, yet dysfunctional family where the fast pace of modern life erodes the natural family ties. Carlo, the husband (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) is experiencing a midlife crisis, finds his job boring and slowly digresses to reignite an old flame, played beautifully by Monica Bellucci.

If Carlo functions on a slow always-brooding wavelength, Giulia, his wife (Laura Morante) is a ball of fire, always in a hurry, works as a teacher, but thinks her true calling is acting, tries it but always self-doubting herself.

Their kids Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff), the ultimate teen who is always self-absorbed, (practically glued to her mirror) and on a mission to get into showbiz no matter what it takes. Paolo (Silvio Muccino, the director’s real-life brother), her brother, is a confused adolescent that feels like the family loser.

When you tie all these characters together, it seems like they have become so much apart of each other, each gliding in his own orbit as if they’re merely strangers renting rooms in the same apartment. In this sense, the director does an excellent job of creating a sense of alienation and discontent.

The plot moves briskly and at times it almost feels like switching TV channels; you start with multiple stories revolving around each character and then keep moving from one story development to the next until a unified development point brings all these sub-plots to conclusion.

The film provides an excellent capture of the dreams, pitfalls and successes of a liberal, middle-class family that always needs to renegotiate its reason for existence. Superb!

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A lot has been written about Italy’s prominent, yet controversial film director, poet and journalist Pier Paolo Pasolini. This documentary film by Philo Bregstein offers a rare glimpse into the tumultuous life of Pasolini until his still unresolved murder circumstances in 1975.

Rare, because the film was made six years after Pasolini’s death and so his memory is still fresh in the accounts of the people interviewed, which helps paint a much richer picture about the man, his background, personality, perspectives and the mystery behind his death.

The film showcases interviews with dignitaries such as Italy’s important poet Alberto Moravia that helps us place Pasolini’s in history. Moravia underscores his significance by talking about most poets before Pasolini came from the right and focused on aggrandizing Italy’s rich history. Pasolini was the first poet with left views that lamented the decline of Italian society, especially in the early 60’s where mass consumerism like television, he believed, contaminated the basic virtues of the simple people and their genuine cultures. That’s why Pasolini beyond being openly gay (a scandalous affair in those days), was attracted to the proletarians in the underworld of the Roman borgate. In this sense, Moravia believes Pasolini’s death was simply an accident that derives from his penchant for violent relationships as depicted in his two novels Ragazzi di vita (Boys of Life) and Una vita violenta (A Violent Life).

The film also brings actress Laura Betti (appeared in several of Pasolini’s films) that fought hard with the Italian justice system to find out what exactly happened that night. Her account suggests a reality that perceived Pasolini - because of his radical views and sexual preference – as a public threat and often times used him as scapegoat. He was brought to trial 33 times, yet acquitted every single time.

I especially liked the interview with renowned film director Bernardo Bertolucci that goes back to the early days of their friendship. Pasolini invited Betolucci to be his assistant in his first film Accatone, which tells the hardships of Pasolini’s friends - the boys from the Roman slums, but using his signature heroic ambiance. The way Betolucci tells it both he and Pasolini never had any cinematic experience, so every scene was practically an historic invention in the making. Betolucci poignantly concludes that Pasolini’s murder was probably some kind of crucifixion against a genius, caught in a wrong period. The film aptly ends with the heroic crucifixion scene in Pasolini’s The Gospel According To St. Matthew (1964).

Pasolini was murdered in 1975 by Giuseppe Pelosi, a 17-year-old hustler, which initially confessed for committing the crime. Yet, in 2005 he retracted his confession claiming that he was under threats to his family by three strangers with southern Italian accents who had committed the murder. The investigation was reopened, but then closed alleging the new elements as still insufficient.

And in Pasolini’s words:

“The mark which has dominated all my work is this longing for life, this sense of exclusion, which doesn’t lessen but augments this love of life.” (Interview in documentary, late 1960s)

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Where have you been during winter 1946?

Since some of us would likely say - nowhere, here is a time capsule from that period in Rome, right after WW2 is over. The American GI’s are still in town and the people wake up into the rough realities of making a living in a battered economy.

The film is a fine example of a lighter take on the neorealism genre, borrowing from the success of its emblematic predecessor - Roma Citta Aperta by Roberto Rossellini, made a year earlier. In fact, both Marcello Pagliero, the director of this film, and Nando Bruno – both played in Roma Citta Aperta.

The film uses themes of daily hardships in a much lighter tone, illustrating variety of characters that coincide one rainy night in an intricate plot that moves a pearl necklace from hand to hand.

From Andrea Checchi, who contemplates suicide over the departure of his treacherous girlfriend (Marisa Merlini), the struggling typist (Valentina Cortese) who can’t pay her rent and opts to street life, the petty thief with a good heart (Nando Bruno). And the dignified minister who lost his memory and keeps asking everyone “do you recognize me?” played beautifully by Vittorio de Sica. Friendships are formed quickly to navigate the criminal elements the night summons. Only at dawn the picture becomes clearer as things are never like they initially seem. That’s where the film extra title comes handy - La Notte Porta Consiglio - The Night Gives Wisdom.

This plot is supported by an endless chain of cigarette-smoking, alcohol/espresso-drinking, you would recognize the theme song composed by maestro Nino Rota. He then reused it in Fellini’s “I Vitelloni.” The music veers from a somber pessimistic flair to a whimsical, comic tone with a promise that no matter what, things will eventually work out fine.

Looking through another prism, with today’s Internet gold rush ignited by twenty something entrepreneurs – this film too was created from nothing by twenty something pioneers with a burning fire to explore the new medium. In fact, this is Pagliero’s first film. It didn’t find major success, but nevertheless it’s a fantastic gem with all the time-specific trappings of people, challenges, culture and Rome before its piazzas were transformed into car garages…

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