cafe Pellicola - window to fine italian cinema

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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I have been waiting for this and the following movie for months. I am thrilled. This is my own root region (partially) and I have the privilege to be in and out of the scene.

Sardinia, where its crystal waters are seen with suspects, and its dark remote caves are a shelter. A land of sheep and shepherd; cardoons and cork oaks, basalt and granite; tough orbace and delicate filigree; slanting eyes and black, thick eyebrows; legend and truth; divinities and saints. Land where everything is elusive and stationary at once. Where people talks with the look. Where the sun doesn’t bring smiles, and the light is in the night.

With this peculiar, unique background Salvatore Mereu, young director, brought to life a little masterpiece of colors, feelings, characters, and sceneries. Clearly inspired to the visionary representation of Fellini, sweetly surrealistic, he fulfills our desire of cinema with no expectations.

Divided into 4 chapters, linked to the 4 seasons, he traces a profile of Sardinian life that is naive and sweet. He’s able to bring out the poetry hidden inside its ancestral tight limits. The Spring, the discovery, when the children run toward the sea for the first time, on those interminable dunes of white sand. The summer, the wonder, when the shepherd meets the love among his remote caves. The autumn, the look back, when the young noun comes back to the village for a wedding that could have been hers. The winter, the dignity, when the old man tries to escape from the unavoidable lonely life of the city through the dream and the kindness of a prostitute.

A movie difficult to follow if you need a traditional plot, but art doesn’t need a plot. This is a sweet romantic photo of the hidden poetry of Sardinia.

Since I couldn’t find a trailer, this is a piece of real life from the village where my sister lives, Bortigali (area Il Marghine, province Nuoro, Sardegna) .

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Sunday October 13, 2007 Cinemasud continues its path.

It’s late, I have to hurry. They won’t wait for me. I push my lazy legs pedaling as fast as I can.

I finally arrive after 10 infinite panting minutes. I am breathless, but at the reception everybody is there. Pasquale, Clarissa, Serena, and sweet Victor. Grazie in any case. I hate watching a movie already started. Clarissa after a list of due thanks, introduces the film Tornando a casa (Returning home – like we decided to translate – she says) by Vincenzo Marra, 2001.

A small crew of 3 Neapolitan fishermen and an Algerian is working in Sicily. They sail further though, they expand their Mediterranean territory to the richer waters of Africa, more fish, four times the money. Dangerous clandestine fishing.

While Salvatore, (Sasa’ local nickname) the owner of the boat, and Giovanni, the oldest of the group, are excited to have this chance to make more money Franco, the youngest, is worried and not in favor of this practice. Samir, does not have too many choices. He is a clandestine everywhere. A few more days just to make the money.

The next night is the end of the job. They are shut, they loose the nets, they go back to scoop them up, they break the boat, so they decide to go back to Naples. Back in Naples, they try to settle in the local fishing business. But how can we expect that things would improve in such a movie coming from the old realistic school? Verga taught us, Visconti too.

In Naples (Pozzuoli), the crew is sabotaged by the local mafia who want to control the fishing job putting Sasa’ in big debts, and Rosa, Franco’s wife dies in an accident. Giovanni has to bring his young son to work to help earning money and support the family.

The only way of surviving is to go back to Sicily where they can fish yet not live. And Franco takes the only opportunity to actually leave. A symbolic end. Franco mingling among African clandestine will be sent back to his country, where with no ids or connections, will represent its rescue.

It’s a sad reality. A sad life, away from home and from the family. We wouldn’t even imagine that it still exists today. This movie definitely follows a neo-realistic foundation. It has been compared to La Terra Trema by Luchino Visconti (1948) film about the tragedy of the sea life of fishermen in Sicily – as many of the actors are not even professionals. And they only speak dialect.

Who are these characters today? Sasa’ owner of a boat, could be considered a lucky man – within the environment – however lonely, fishing for all his life, the group-crew is the only real family. Giovanni, old, needs to support his a big family. Franco is young and – with nothing else - has the classic American dream, although his young wife Rosa, is not willing to it.

Samir is a clandestine everywhere, in his country won’t be accepted, and in Italy could be resent back to his country. He has nothing to lose, because he already lost everything, his identity. And this, in the end, would actually result from the sad perspective of Franco a new possibility of life. The last chance.

Cinemasud is now performing at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, San Diego.

A bit about the festival and its goals (description is from the Italian Cinema Sud site).

Cinema Sud, starting its worldwide tour with the screening of the documentary Détour De Seta at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, has been organized by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with AIP-FilmItalia.

It is an initiative supported by the funds of the programme Italia Internazionale, managed by the Directorate General for European Integration of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support the internationalization process of southern Italian regions (Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Sardinia and Sicily).

Cinema Sud is carried out through the widespread activation of the diplomatic-consular network and the Institutes of Culture on the part of the Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation.

In accordance with the six southern Italian regions, some films were selected because they were considered particularly significant not only for the promotion of southern Italian territory but also for their innovative contents and the wide range of cultural themes they dwell on.

Cinema Sud sets itself two goals: firstly, the enhancement of southern Italian territory and culture by showing very impressive images also portraying modernity and the changes occurred recently in Italy and in its South, in particular; secondly, the enhancement of Italian Cinema and of a generation of young authors from the South, who have been able to rediscover the new South in recent years, together with its traditions and millenary culture.

For more information, check the program at www.cinemasud.com