Open Roads ’18: The Place

It is sort of like an Italian Cheers, but nobody knows the name of the quiet, Mephistophelean man who always sits in the corner table. If you are there to see him, you must be desperate, but the deals he offers never bring peace of mind. If this sounds familiar, then perhaps you remember

Christopher Kubasik’s two-season FX television show, The Booth at the End, which Paolo Genovese been remade as an Italian one-shot feature. Fans of the source show will find it translated surprisingly smoothly when Genovese’s The Place (trailer here) screens during Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2018.

He sits in “The Place” (this time around, it really is more of a café than a diner), where he drinks a lot of coffee, a little bit of whiskey, and lets the despairing sign away their souls. All day long, people ask for miracles, but he gives them Faustian bargains. One old woman wants to cure her husband’s Alzheimer’s. To do that, she must place a bomb somewhere where it is sure to kill a certain number of people. Hers is probably the most extreme case, but not by much. To save his son, one man must kill another innocent child. Rather nefariously, “The Man” sends another favor-seeker on a mission to protect the girl he is stalking.

The thing of it is, The Man at the corner table is by far the most interesting character in the film (and several others are quite compelling). We never get any of his backstory or any real explanation, but we quickly get the impression he takes no pleasure from any of this mayhem. He is a cosmic middle man—perhaps even a reluctant one, whose hands are tied by the mysterious notebook he frequently consults. Angela, who works the swing and graveyard shifts can’t figure him out, but he rather uncharacteristically seems to enjoy her efforts to crack his code.

Frankly, it is pretty darned impressive how successfully Genovese boils down the first season of Booth into a tight, taut feature. It will hold viewers rapt by its spell for one hour and forty-five minutes, yet you will probably have no desire to go catch-up with the two seasons of Booth (even though it stars the ever reliable Xander Berkeley), because you will feel like you have seen it in its essence.

Genovese puts a lot on the cast’s shoulders, because he retains the original show’s minimalist technique of unfolding all of the narrative developments in conversations with the Man, but they bear it smashingly, particularly Valerio Mastandrea, who is wonderfully subtle as the Man himself. Throughout the entire film, he has the audience guessing whether he is the monster many favor-seekers think him to be, or the lonely, world-weary man Angela assumes he is. He is also perfectly counter-balanced by Sabrina Ferilli as the warm and down-to-earth Angela. You can see why anyone would guzzle java at her late-night café. The Place is also frequented by at least half a dozen other top Italian thesps, such as Alba Rohwacher (I Am Love, Hungry Hearts) and Marco Giallini, who are all working at the top of their respective games.

The Place is not exactly a thriller per se, but it turns a couple of twists that are real game-changers. As a remake of a somewhat known American property, The Place will probably be a tough sell for theatrical distribution, which is a shame, because it is a prime example of super-slick, ultra-grabby filmmaking. Very highly recommended, The Place screens twice this Thursday (5/31) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s Open Roads.

Tribeca 15: Hungry Hearts

It is based on an Italian novel, but echoes of the notorious Atlanta vegan baby starvation case ring throughout Saverio Costanzo’s mostly English language drama. A new Italian mother parents too much with her intuitive feelings, ignoring conventional pediatric nutrition and medicine in Costanzo’s Hungry Hearts, which had its U.S. premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, with a screening at the Montclair Film Festival soon to follow.

Jude, an Upper Westside engineer, and Mina, a PR flack for the Italian consul, meet-cute, under slightly gross circumstances. Enjoy the scatological humor while it lasts, because there will be major friction in their married lives. There are ominous portents of trouble to come during her difficult pregnancy, but Mina’s manic New Aginess really starts to manifest in highly problematic ways when she starts imposing a strict vegan diet on the infant.

At first, Jude is more worried about his underweight son’s persistent cold-like symptoms. However, when he finally sneaks the crib monster to a doctor, he is told the sniffles are “the least of his concern.” The boy is so malnourished, he simply isn’t growing. However, whenever Jude questions Mina’s dietary decisions, she takes it as a personal attack on her legitimacy as a mother and a person. Yet, some things should be said before it is too late.

Hungry paints an alarming portrait of everyday extremism and the slow but steady evolution of conventional vegetarianism to reckless child endangerment. It springs some abrupt course corrections on viewers, but there are reasons for the sharp tonal shifts. While the jokey prelude seems like it belongs in a different film, it helps explain why Jude defers to Mina for so long. There is always love there, but it turns into something very dark and ultimately dangerous.

Ordinarily, the nebbish Adam Driver and the pixyish Alba Rohrwacher would never look like a convincing couple, but cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti’s lens serves as a harsh leveler, ruthlessly focusing on and magnifying the imperfections of their skin. Frankly, in the case of Rohrwacher (who steamed up the screen in Soldini’s Come Undone) this is a much more complicated process, but she compellingly portrays Mina’s physical and emotional decline as she starts to shun direct sunlight and protein. It is a seriously scary transformation.

In contrast, Driver’s Jude always seems to be a step behind the beat, for no good reason. Just for the record, Mina never says to him: “Hey Jude, don’t let me down,” which seems like an obvious oversight. Regardless, they often seem to nurse special resentments only possible through intimate familiarity. There are also brief but pitch perfect supporting turns from Medium co-star Jake Weber as the calm but concerned pediatrician and Roberta Maxwell as Jude’s concerned but not necessarily calm mother.

Hungry is an honest and direct film, but the nearly two hour running time starts to feel punishing after ninety minutes or so. It is like the film is holding us hostage until we pledge to feed our future children healthy slabs of meat. Still, you can’t say it isn’t convincing on that score. Meat is good. The film is also quite good, despite a few stylistic excesses here and there. Recommended for fans of Italian cinema (in exile), Hungry Hearts screens this Sunday (5/3) at Montclair, but the Tribeca Film Festival had it first.

Infidelity Italian Style: Come Undone

In most infidelity dramas, the illicit lovers are carried away in a passion that blinds them to their own loyal and ironically attractive partners. In contrast, it is not hard to see how Anna and Domenico would consider each other a considerable step up. That does not make things any easier for the furtive couple in Silvio Soldini’s Come Undone (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Blond and petite, Anna definitely comes from the north of Italy. She ought to be well out of her big slovenly lover Alessio’s league, but they have settled into a comfortable but boring relationship. Dark and wiry, Domenico is about as Mediterranean as one can get. Between his nagging wife and two noisy young children though, he finds neither peace nor passion at home.

It starts haltingly with a chance encounter. Yet after a few text messages and an interrupted late night assignation in Anna’s office, things get heated quickly. Regularly meeting at an hourly motel on their only free night of the week, Anna becomes increasingly attached, while simultaneously, Domenico’s wife becomes ever more suspicious. Both lovers vacillate between guilt and obsession, but they keeping coming back to each and a situation which appears unsustainable.

It is an old story—commitment is hard and responsibility is a drag. However, Soldini captures the in-the-moment recklessness of their passion with scalding immediacy. Indeed, it is a mature film, but not a prurient one, often uncomfortable in its intimacy. Still, cinematographer Ramiro Civita gives it a rich warm look, effectively reflecting the fevered turmoil of its leads and aptly underscored by Giovanni Venosta’s moody pseudo-ambient music.

As Anna, Alba Rohrwacher (recognizable as Tilda Swinton’s daughter in I Am Love) dominates the film with her forceful screen presence. She projects a tangle of nervous energy and insecurities, but also considerable confidence in her allure. High maintenance does not begin to describe her. Though no shrinking violet, Pierre Francesco largely finds himself fretting and moping as Domenico, while watching Giusepppe Battison’s Alessio stumble through the film with a “kick me” sign permanently affixed to his back is simply cringe-inducing. Frankly, Rohrwacher owns the picture, but Gigio Alberti still hams it up with gusto as her boss Morini and Gisella Burinato is wonderfully sly as good old Aunt Ines.

While there is also a mild class dynamic at play in Undone, it works best when closely scrutinizing its characters’ compulsive behavior. It denies them any convenient justifications for their betrayal, leaving them with only the blindingly oblivious grass-is-greener reasons. Neither a nonjudgmental nor a moralizing film, it is rather an honest and direct take on infidelity. One of the better adultery dramas of the year (eclipsing several fairly recent French imports on the subject), Undone opens this Friday (12/3) in New York at the Quad.