It was a very good year.
From New And Exciting Directors
1.Laura Bispuri’s Vergine Giurata (Sworn Virgin), is about the practice in Northern Albania of women renouncing their femininity to enjoy the same rights that men do, but Bispuri doesn’t preach or moralize, she just tells the tale of Hana, who breaks her spell and sheds the chains that bind her. She’s taken an obscure tradition and created a story that uplifts and inspires us all.
LAURA SAYS TO WATCH FOR IT IN AMERICAN THEATERS IN ’16.
2. Alberto Caviglia’s Pecore In Erba (Burning Love) is a wild,hilarious ride that pushes every button. This comedy about anti-semitism (You heard me. It’s a comedy.) and it takes every stereotype, every prejudice, and every form of hatred toward Jews and spins them around like tops, creating a merry frenzy that is absolutely laugh out loud funny.
CAVIGLIA HAS PROMISED TO LET US KNOW WHEN IT WILL ARRIVE ON US SHORES
3. Lamberto Sanfelice’s Cloro, (Chlorine) couldn’t have done a better job of getting us inside the head of Jenny, a self-centered teenage girl whose young life has been flung into premature adulthood. Cloro is Jenny’s story alone, and we can wonder how the other characters are getting on, but we can only guess. The film’s focus is Jenny and her single-minded obsession with getting back the life that she was forced to abandon when tragedy struck.
From The Big Guns
4. Paolo Sorrentino’s La Giovinezza, Youth is about Mick, a director, played by Harvey Keitel, and Fred, a composer played by Michael Caine, on holiday together in the Swiss Alps. This English language film is every bit as dreamy and gorgeous as the Academy Award winning La Grande Bellezza and has one of Jane Fonda’s best performances ever.
YOUTH OPENING ALL OVER THE USA THIS MONTH
5. Matteo Garrone’s Il Racconto Dei Racconti, Tale of Tales is another English language film with cinematography that is dreamy and creepy, wild bursts of color and imagination and an exciting and even scary story with monsters. ogres, and witches popping out around every corner.
TALE OF TALES COMING SOON TO AMERICA
6. Marco Bellocchio’s Sangue Del Mio Sangue, Blood Of My Blood is spectacular in its ambiguity; it’s creepy, gorgeous, horrifying and funny all at once in both of the stories that Bellocchio tells in it. In the first, a nun has seduced a priest and he was apparently so ashamed that he killed himself, so in order for his twin brother (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) to avoid burying him in the “donkey cemetery”, it must be proven that the nun is a witch.
In the second, parallel and yet not at all parallel story, it is modern times and in the same location as the witch trial, the mysterious Count Basta (Roberto Hertlitzka), a vampire, has found a great place to hide. Basta acts as a sort of goulish godfather to the town, and since everybody has an interest in maintaining the status quo, when a Russian billionaire shows up interested in buying the decrepit prison, something must be done.
7. Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre, My Mother may be Moretti’s best ever, and just in case you ever doubted Margherita Buy’s talent as an actress and were getting tired of seeing her with all those Best Actress awards, hang on; Mia Madre will change your mind.
Mia Madre is a perfectly balanced, artfully told story about grief, loss, and self-reflection. Nothing maudlin here, and though it is at times achingly sad, it’s not a cheesy tear-jerker. Moretti’s script and Buy’s performance as Margherita, the film director, put the viewer solidly into the story as observation turns to meditation. Buy’s character is the modern everyman; self-absorbed, impatient, and a bit removed from relationships in her life.
8. Cristina Comencini’s Latin Lover is one of the best ensemble comedies I have seen in years, and Comencini’s dialogue is spot on. Virna Lisi (in her last performance before her death in December 2014), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Human Capital), Candela Peña (All About My Mother) and Angela Finocchiaro (Benvenuto al Sud) couldn’t be more natural as mother and sisters airing old slights, and though their family dynamics are unconventional, they seem real. Saverio himself, who never really understood why all those women were so crazy about him, is played by Francesco Scianna (Baarìa) who evokes old fashioned movie swoons from everyone in the film and us in the audience as well.
Latin Lover is funny and heartwarming, and the recreated vintage movie scenes are too much fun for words. Dedicated to the memory of Lisi, this film couldn’t have been a better tribute to the movie star and her golden era.
9. Stefano Sollima’s Suburra is probably my favorite of the whole year; there are no good guys here, so if you require a hero for your movie enjoyment, it’s really going to depend on your definition of the word.
10. Saverio Costanzo’s Hungry Hearts cleverly combines provocative current topics like Indigo Children, veganism for babies and the use of untraditional medicine and makes them seem sinister here, but obsession is the villain and it is a pervasive threat for everyone involved.
I Love Italian Everything 