My Top 5 So Far
I am still waiting for the opportunity to see Marco Bellocchio’s ‘Fai Bei Sogni’ (Sweet Dreams) but it will be screening at the Chicago International Film Festival, and Claudio Giovannesi’s ‘Fiore’; that DVD is due to arrive soon. Otherwise, here are the ones that are at the top of my list of a very good year of watching Italian cinema.
Indivisibili
Eighteen-year-old conjoined twins Dasy and Viola (twins Angela and Marianna Fontana) are part pop stars and part side-show geeks, supporting the family singing at weddings and first holy communions. Director Edoardo De Angelis has done a wonderful job of using this rare physical condition to embrace us all and address the universal fear of separation from family, friends, and even our own lives.
The acting is amazing, especially given that the twins had never done it before, and the dialogue is awesome, with a regional dialogue so obscure that even Italian audiences need subtitles.
Indivisibili debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Il Più Grande Sogno
It’s real. It’s authentic, it’s innovative, and it’s the cinematic embodiment of what I love about today’s Italian cinema. Director Michele Vannucci collaborated with top Italian actor Alessandro Borghi and actor Mirko Frezza for this movie that is “based on” Mirko’s real life.
In it, he plays a guy, fresh out of prison and elected president of his neighborhood association. The Mirko in the movie and the Mirko in real life are an inspiration. We all make mistakes, but one that lands you in jail can be especially damaging, taking you away from your family and making it hard to get people to trust you when you get out. But Mirko’s strength and determination are a sight to behold.
Il Più Grande Sogno debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
Orecchie (Ears)
Daniele Parisi is hilarious in this dark comedy from director Alessandro Aronadio, playing a guy with a ringing in his ears that is driving him crazy.
The “guy” in the movie (played by Parisi, but we never learn his character’s name) is on a quest to find the answer to his problems, and is rollicking good fun, with costars Silvia D’Amico, Ivan Franek, Rocco Papaleo, Piera Degli Esposti, and Massimo Wertmüller.
Orecchie debuted at the Venice Film Festival.
La Pazza Gioia (Like Crazy)
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Micaela Ramazzotti are practically perfect in this practically perfect comedy from director Paolo Virzì. Playing patients that escape from a mental institution, Bruni Tedeschi (who tends to play over-wound and unstable women so well that we wonder if she really is one) plays the institutionalized Beatrice and Ramazzotti plays her anorexic and suicidal roommate Donatella. She’s dug down so deep into herself to achieve this level of authentic bleakness that I can imagine it was impossible to completely crawl back out at the end of the work day.
La Pazza Gioia premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi (The Last Will Be Last)
Paola Cortellesi, the actress that I’ve been calling “Italy’s darling” for years stars in Massimiliano Bruno’s “dark comedy”(so dark I wouldn’t exactly call it a comedy) Gli Ultimi Saranno Ultimi. In it, she’s Luciana, a factory worker married to a guy (Alessandro Gassman) who’s the love of her life, but allergic to work, so she’s the bread-winner.
When she gets pregnant and her job is in jeopardy, her struggle illustrates the plight of so many of her fellow Italians in the midst of a grave economic crisis.
AND A BONUS
Suburra
Though it was released in 2015, Suburra is part of this season’s film and the best of the last couple of years.
Suburra isn’t a documentary and it isn’t meant to be educational or provide a factual account of news stories of contemporary Rome, but it does feel a little too authentic for comfort. Director Stefano Sollima took the “Mafia Capitale, a real-life scandal involving the Roman government and made it into a seriously cool movie with dark, violent and fascinating characters.
Starring Greta Scarano, Alessandro Borghi, Elio Germano and Pierfrancesco Favino, Suburra is the coolest of the cool and you can watch it on Netflix RIGHT NOW!
I Love Italian Everything 