The New Italian film Festival at SIFF Cinema is packed with winners, from opening night true-crime expose "Foraspasc" to festival closer, the multi-coupled romantic comedy-drama "Ex." Most of the selections have broad appeal, and deserve wide release, so take this opportunity to be the first to see them. Directors and other special guests are expected to attend most screenings. Check with the theatre for more complete information.
“Fortaspasc” (Tues. Nov.17 at 7:30 and Fri. Nov. 20 at 9:30)
The title refers to John Ford’s “Fort Apache,” which is how director Marco Risi sees the Naples of 1985, when the Mafia had its fingers in everything, and killed 26-year old journalist Giancarlo Siani for his investigations into the corrupt misuse of an “earthquake fund.” The story is narrated by Siani, who announces from the start that he has five minutes to live. This doesn’t soften the shock when the moment of his death actually arrives. “Fortaspasc” is a brutal and heartbreaking story of suicidal idealism in the face of societal breakdown. Libero De Rienzo is reminiscent of the young Gary Cooper in his grinning and good-natured embrace of the risks he must take in order to honor his profession. He also handles the romantic subplot concerning a jealous girlfriend and a flirtatious cellist with a measured sense of balance between his personal idiosyncrasies and the things in the world that really matters.
Recommended for those who liked “Gommorah” or “Uno Bianca”
“Lecture 21” (Wed. Nov. 18 at 7:00)
A professor has written a book demystifying unworthy masterpieces. “Lecture 21” is on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but it is not so much a lecture as a trial, with different groups defending, attacking, and deconstructing the work. This is a funny, whimsical movie that draws its spirit from “Alice in Wonderland,” Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” and Ken Russell’s biopics on the great composers. Despite its many qualities, it may prove to be something of a bore to those not fiercely interested in the piece of music under discussion. Salon people, however, will love it.
Recommended for those who liked “Mahler,” “Wittgenstein,” or “Immortal Beloved.”
“Sea Purple” (Wed. Nov. 18 at 9:15)
“Sea Purple” is a medieval horror story set on a lovely island off the Sicilian Coast. The title, mistranslated from the Italian “Viola di Mare,” alludes to a mythical fish that changes its sex for love. Angela’s father wanted a boy so badly that he held a knife to her mother’s throat during childbirth, as if he could determine the sex of the child by so threatening his wife. Such brutality and superstition defines patriarchal authority on this 19th century island, where the darkest, cruelest human behavior destroys the fresh optimism of children nurtured by the sun and the sea. When Angela refuses to submit to a arranged marriage, instead declaring love for her childhood friend Sara, her father coerces the doctors into forging her birth records to change her into a man, then forces his quarry workers to accept her as the new padrone. Silly as this might sound, it is not nearly as preposterous as young Angela is diagnosed, after being beaten by her father, as having an evil spirit inside her and a belly filled with worms.
Recommended for those who liked “The Devils.”
“Different From Whom?” (Thurs. Nov. 19 at 7:00)
When a gay mayoral candidate and his female running mate fall in love, their campaign, as well as gender identities, go out the window. The riotous beginning of “Different From Whom?,” in which the candidates try to compromise their left and centrist views into a vote-winning package, gives way to an amusing if conservative sex farce. This also begins hilariously, with some smart repartee between the passionate outbursts, but follows a straight course to the expected complications. Nevertheless, this vivacious romp is frothy fun throughout, with Claudia Gerini, who can also be seen in the festival’s closing night film “Ex,” at the center of a witty and attractive cast.
Recommended for those who liked “Chasing Amy” or “Milk.”
“House in the Clouds” (Thurs. Nov. 19 at 9:30)
“House in the Clouds” is like a train that changes tracks so often that even the engineer forgets where it is supposed to be going. With four credited writers on the screenplay, there are at least four stories begging to be told, each at the expense of the others. The first is about a 22 year old Italian man who decides to go to New York to become a jazz musician. This plot strand is abandoned after about ten minutes in order to tell the story of two brothers who, when informed their father has sold the house in which they have lived all their lives, travel to Morocco to get it back. After some embarrassing scenes with the restraint owner who bought their father’s house, they happen to run across their father himself, instigating a tale of the abandonment and reconciliation of an irresponsible son with his two sons of contrasting temperament. Finally, the love story between the father and his Muslim mistress who falls in love with the younger son and runs away. Each story is in turn dropped and the next commences, leaving the viewer with about as much commitment to the journey as a hitch-hiker at a five-cornered truck intersection.
Recommended for those who liked “The House of Sand and Fog.”
“Pa-ra-da” (Fri. Nov. 20 at 7:00)
Few subjects are as heartbreaking as the plight of children living on their own in the streets of big cities. Marco Pontevorvo, son of director Gillo Pontecorvo and cinematographer in his own right, spent seven years recreating this story of French clown Miloud’s efforts to bring self-respect and hope into the lives of Bucharest’s sewer kids. His interest in helping them draws the wrath of both the police, who frequently rape the teenaged prostitutes, and the criminals, who use them as pawns in the drug trade. Resisting all attempts to force his abandonment of the children and retreat to France, he forms a performing circus troupe, which gives meaning and direction to these marginalized young lives. Pontecorvo has chosen to show only what is known to have happened, leaving many unexplained and unresolved narrative threads. This sacrifice of cohesion to truth results in a story is never forced to fit a particular mold, but bristles with the rough edges of reality.
Recommended for those who liked “City of God,” Streetwise,” or “Accatone.”
“The Sicilian Girl” (Sat. Nov. 21 at 5:30)
This true story’s of Rita Atria’s denunciation of the Mafioso who killed her father and brother explores the difference between revenge and justice as Atria takes a journey into the truths and untruths of her own past, where she discovers her family to be cut from the same cloth as those she now accuses. Writer director Marco Armenta, working with legendary screenwriter Sergio Donati, has fictionalized Atria’s story in order to give it more universal appeal, but the essential facts of the case have remained intact. “The Sicilian Girl” begins as an exciting crime drama, then moves into a character study of an angry and lonely young woman who, by the age of seventeen, has been betrayed by her lover, her mother, and even her own memories. Veronica d’Agostino is physically perfect in the lead, and her performance is a tribute to this remarkable person who remains an inspiration to the anti-mafia movement in Sicily
Recommended for those who liked “The Godfather,” or “Il Divo.”
“Ex” (Sat. Nov. 21 at 8:00)
Veteran television and screen writer Fausto Brazzi comes into his own as a director with his second film. “Ex,” a light romantic drama that follows six couples through various stages of break-up and reconciliation. The excellent cast gives a light touch to situations that veer from the melodramatic ( a cop threatens to kill the guy who is dating his ex) to the sentimental (after his ex-wife is killed in a car wreck, a man discovers that she never stopped loving him.) “Ex” begins with the belief that the chemistry of love has an expiration date, and concludes by extolling marriage as a binding sacrament. It is the paradox that has fueled many an Italian sex comedy, and Brazzi finds many variations on the theme. Among them, the effect of professional life upon domestic stability, with a priest, a doctor, and lawyer somersaulting between the bedroom and the workplace.
Recommended for those who liked “Love Actually,” “Sex and the City,” or “Remember Me, My Love.”
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