A “To Watch” List For High School and College Students
Buongiorno, Notte (Good morning, night) is director Marco Bellocchio’s 2003 story about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, Italian president of the political party, Democrazia Cristiana.
To understand Italy, you have to understand the 70’s, a bloody and dangerous decade for Italy.
A terrorist group – BR, Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) was wreaking havoc, responsible for 14,000 acts of violence, the kidnapping of public figures, and having murdered 75, Aldo Moro was the most famous. Bellocchio tells the story shown through the eyes of one of the terrorists, a 23-year-old girl named Chiara (Maya Sansa), who in effect, epitomizes the young, idealistic anarchists who believed, as Chiara’s leader told her: “Per la vittoria del proletariato è lecito uccidere anche la propria madre.” – For the victory of the proletariat it is lawful to kill your own mother.
Io e Te (Me and You) is a film for every teenager that ever felt disconnected, disenfranchised, or antisocial. Bernardo Bertolucci got everything right in the story of the boy who hid out in his basement instead of going on the school ski trip.
It’s a brilliant plan for a kid who wants nothing more than to be left alone. His mom sends a bunch of money with him to school so that he can go skiing with his class, the teacher says, “If I don’t get your money by tomorrow you’re not going”, and the kid pockets the money and buys a bunch of snack items for his own little adventure.
Since Lorenzo doesn’t acknowledge how dangerously alienated he’s become from everyone in his life, you have to look for clues, and they aren’t hard find. The opening scene is a stare down in his psychologist’s office. His pre-“ski trip” dinner with his mom shows the quiet contempt he has for her as he jovially says the most horrible things he can think of. Is he a sexual deviant? Maybe, but it’s more likely that one of his hobbies is making her squirm.
Diaz: Non Pulire Questa Sangue (Don’t Clean Up This Blood)
Director Daniele Vicari said, “I’ve made a lot of documentaries before this”, said Vicari, “but this was the first time I realized I made a movie based on facts that were actually real”. During the G8 summit in 2001, police raided the Diaz school in Genoa, Italy, searching and beating the protesters who were staying there for more than two hours. Over 3000 hours of personal video and photos of events outside the school were released to the press and can be seen on YouTube, and the events inside the school were reconstructed from first hand testimony from hundreds of victims.
Dieci Inverni (Ten Winters) is a film about ten winters in the life of young, star-crossed lovers. There’s nothing particularly remarkable here, except it’s sweet, realistic, and about actual young people and not someone Carlo Verdone’s age.
Caterina Va In Città (Caterina in the Big City), from director Paolo Virzì is Mean Girls Italian-Style. It’s possible that girls will identify more than boys, but, wow, did Virzì get the high school experience in this film about Caterina, who gets thrown to the wolves, or rather 2 rival groups of Roman high school girls.
I Love Italian Everything 