This last comedy from director Carlo Mazzacurati, La Sedia Della Felicità, is sweet, kooky, and oh yeah, that thing that a comedy is supposed to be, funny.
Mazzacurati, sadly, died last year at age 57 and didn’t live long enough to see the release of his film, but he left us with a little gem, a comedy that recalls the old American screwball comedies and does it in a modern way.
Valerio Mastandrea as Dino the tattoo artist, Isabella Ragonese as Bruna,the floundering spa owner, and Giuseppe Battiston as the priest go treasure hunting when the an old woman dies in prison and, with her last breath, tells Bruna a secret; there’s something valuable that nobody knows about hidden in a chair in her house.
Their determined albeit nutty quest to find the chair is a lively, quirky, and at times surreal romp though northern Italy is sharp-witted fun and an example of the new kind of comedy that we are finding in Italy, less maudlin and sentimental, more ironic and satirical.
With hilarious cameos by Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Silvio Orlando, and Antonio Albanese, everything about this film, from the playful soundtrack to the deadpan hilarity of the actors makes it stand out; Americans would love it if they ever got a chance to see it in their theaters.
I Love Italian Everything 