These films deserved more attention. What happened to them?
Anni Felici (Those Happy Years) 2013
Starring Kim Rossi Stuart and Micaela Ramazzotti, this “autobiographical story” is told from director Daniele Luchetti’s 14 year-old self’s perspective in 1974 and really lets it all hang out, to use ’70s terms, telling about his family.
Rossi Stuart stars as Guido, an artist and art teacher who seems to be wasting a lot of his time in his studio having sex with his college students/models, all beautiful and conveniently naked for their work. His wife Serena, played by Ramazzotti, is neither artistic or intellectual, and being relegated to the role of wife and mother and shut out by a husband who “doesn’t like to mix work with family” (obviously) leaves her insecure and unfulfilled.
This is one of those films that touched me deeply, and was certain would be very big, even in America. It has what I consider Micaela Ramazzotti’s finest performance, as the mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
È Stato Il Figlio 2012
EVERYTHING is right about Daniele Ciprì’s directorial debut, È Stato Il Figlio (It Was The Son) including the cast, with Toni Servillo,, Giselda Volodi, Giuseppe Vitale and Aurora Quattrocchi. You’ve never seen Servillo in a role like this, as father who is struggling by as a metal scavengers in slums of Palermo. His wife, Loredana, played by Volodi, takes care of the household that also includes the grandparents, played by Quattrocchi and Benedetto Ranelli, and a beloved daughter who, for many reasons, seems like the family’s hope for the future.
When the daughter is killed by a mafioso bullet meant for her cousin, the family is thrown into deep and desperate mourning, lessened only by the news that they are owed compensation from the government, given when an innocent victim is killed by Mafia violence. The money, which seems at first a gift from God, slowly becomes a curse, and it will be up to everyone who sees this movie to decide for himself the level of irony in the film’s title: E’ Stato Il Figlio – It Was The Son.
This Must Be The Place 2011
Paolo Sorrentino’s English language film stars Sean Penn as Cheyenne, a bored, aging rock star that lives off his royalties in a mansion outside Dublin. When he learns that his father is dying he travels to America (on a cruise ship – he’s afraid to fly) but he arrives too late; his father has died. He hadn’t talked to his father in thirty years because he, years ago, decided that his father didn’t love him. He’s told what his father had been doing with himself all that time, hunting the nazi war criminal that had humiliated him at Auschwitz. With little apparent thought to what he will do if he finds this Nazi, Cheyenne sets out on a road trip across America to finish his father’s work.
Also starring Frances McDormand, this sweet, quirky film seemed like a slam dunk, and yet it barely made it to the major US cities.
Into Paradiso 2010
Alfonso, a scientist in Naples gets fired from his job and asks a local politician, Vincenzo Cacace, for a recommendation. He’s initially blown off until Cacace , who’s mixed up with the Camorra, realizes that there’s something in it for him – he sends Vincenzo on a little errand in return for the help we’re really not even sure he’ll give.
Alfonso trusts him and tries to deliver the package, but the recipients are gunned down just as they reach for it and Alfonso flees into a nearby apartment building so that the same thing doesn’t happen to him. Little does he know how his life will change in the world he’s about to discover.The building has become a kind of enclave for immigrants from Sri Lanka – a “Paradiso”, a home away from home that seems far away from the outside streets of Napoli.
Directed by Paola Randi, it’s a mafia movie that has a fanciful, daydreamy, “girlie” touch that I just loved.
Magnifica Presenza 2012
It’s a comedy, directed by Ferzan Ozpetek with Elio Germano who plays Pietro, an aspiring actor who works in a bakery and goes on auditions. When Pietro moves into a new house he finds that the old inhabitants have not quite moved out; it’s haunted by a group of glamorous actors from the past, a theater company that went missing in 1943.
It’s a ghost story, but nobody is haunting anybody. Each is just a wonderful, “magnifica” presence in each others’ lives and the friendship that develops between the living and the dead is just darling.
I Love Italian Everything 