I Love Italian Everything

Just so no one thinks I’m some kind of Italian movie Pollyanna that would never say a bad word about Italian movies, I’ve decided that I’d better say a few bad words about Italian movies.

When I say bad words, I mean my own opinions, not to be confused with constructive criticism. Sometimes I’m watching a movie and I think of how I would have changed it – whether or not how I’d have changed a movie is worth writing down is debatable, but I’ll do it anyway.

1) One of the things I like best about Italian movies is the thing that can wear thin if overdone – the sentimentality. I love the emotion in the love stories and the melancholy memories of family and childhood but when characters become caricatures (like in Baarìa)  the movie can start to seem like a silly travelogue.

2) Italians seem to like the big cast movies that have a dozen different subplots – none told very well. (Do they or don’t they like them?  Filmmakers seem to like to make them but do Italian go to see them? )  Movies like Paolo Virzì’s “Ferie D’agosto” make me crazy – if they want to take on that much of a story they should make it a TV miniseries.

3) What’s with the dubbing all the time?

I like the movies about the Mafia and other various organized crime organizations but I always see Italians complaining about them so maybe filmmakers should give that a rest for awhile.

And Italians seem to complain a lot about the endless angst in their movies but I think that they’d be surprised to see that this has improved. I think that the recent Italian movies are doing a good job of telling emotional stories minus the histrionics, so hopefully Italy will give them another chance.