Open Roads ’24: Adagio

No matter how old they get, aging gangsters like Cammello are always going to be dangerous. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t still be alive. Despite their differences, they will do their best to protect a teenaged boy from the crooked cop he knows too much about in Stefano Sollima’s Adagio, which screens during this year’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

With fires raging outside the city limits, Rome looks like it is on the brink of an apocalypse. Even if it is the end of the world, Vasco and his extralegal task-force want to film a high-profile politician engaged in compromising sexual acts at an Eyes Wide Shut-style orgy. They intend to use Manuel to get it. Having arrested him for solicitation, they will expose him at school and in his neighborhood, unless he cooperates. However, when Manuel notices the many cameras recording the party’s debauchery, he gets spooked and flees.

Realizing he is a threat to Vasco, Manuel takes refuge with blind Polniuman, a former colleague of his ex-gangster father Daytona, in a now defunct Roman criminal syndicate. Polniuman is as shrewd as ever, but he never muscle even when he could see, so he sends the teenager to Cammello, who is still a grizzled bull of a man. He and Daytona had a bitter falling out, but Polniuman knows he won’t turn the young boy away.

Sollima is responsible for the worst Tom Clancy adaptation ever, Without Remorse, which showed zero understanding of what his books were all about (here’s a hint: the U.S. military are supposed to be the good guys). However, he totally gets Italian gangster dramas. Adagio is gritty as heck and achingly tragic. The nights are hot and humid, while the sky disconcertingly glows, thanks to the smoke from the fires. That all makes an especially potent setting for film noir. Incidentally, the way he and cinematographer Paolo Carnera depict the crimson Roman skies is no exaggeration. Take it from someone who was in New York last year for the orange atmosphere resulting from Canada’s out of control forest fires.

While Adagio is far from perfect (frankly, Manuel is a big nothing of a character), it is super-stylish and Pierfrancesco Favino is massively hardnosed as Cammello. Favino is physically imposing, but his screen-presence is even larger. You would hardly recognize him from The War Machine, but he can play a strong silent type on land as well as at sea.

Open Roads ’24: A Brighter Tomorrow

The Italian Communist Party (PCI) received direct financial support from the Soviet Union, so obviously they had no independence whatsoever. They refused to condemn the terrorism of the Red Army Faction and parroted Party propaganda demonizing democracy advocates during the Hungarian Revolution and the Czechoslovakian invasion. Inevitably, many prominent members broke from the Party in ’56 and ’68, but the PCI stayed loyal to its Soviet masters as an institution. The PCI’s massive hypocrisy is ripe for savage mockery, but that is absolutely not happening in Nanni Moretti’s A Brighter Tomorrow, which screens during this year’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

As usual, Moretti plays a filmmaker not so different from himself. Giovanni yearns to make an Italian adaption of John Cheever’s “The Swimmer,” but his current film is a story of a neighborhood PCI club, who are hosting a Hungarian circus troupe, right as the Soviet tanks roll into Hungary.

Giovanni conceived his film as a musical, vaguely in an Umbrellas of Cherbourg bag, using sentimental old Italian pop songs. He wants to evoke nostalgia for the glory days of PCI clubs, so Giovanni needs to somewhat whitewash the PCI’s history. As director of A Brighter Tomorrow, the real-life Moretti is clearly trying to rehabilitate the real-life PCI. Consequently, the film runs interference for Italian Communists on multiple meta-levels.

When not excusing away an oppressive ideology, A Brighter Tomorrow engages in self-indulgently neurotic rom-com humor. This film should inspire fresh new respect for Woody Allen, because his angsty, nebbish, classic movie-loving, frustrated artist shtick is obviously harder than it looks.

A Brighter Tomorrow had tremendous potential for satire, but Moretti openly engages in wish-fulfillment, creating a PCI rebellion against CCP orthodoxy that literally never happened. You have to wonder what the legendary Polish actor Jerzy Stuhr (who worked extensively with Krzysztof Kieslowski and Andrzej Wajda) really and truly thinks of Moretti’s final cut. In this film, Stuhr plays the Polish ambassador, who happens to be the much older boyfriend of Giovanni’s college student daughter Emma, so keep those Woody Allen comparisons coming.

Open Roads ’24: The War Machine

It is a shame Lt. Commander Salvatore Todaro did not live to see Italy switch sides in WWII, because he probably could have worked well with the Allies. Todaro might be the only Axis officer who is remembered for saving lives and this is the most notable example. Todaro and his crew truly deliver full service when they first sink the Kabalo, a Belgian freighter, and then rescue all 26 survivors in Edoardo De Angelis’s The War Machine (a.k.a. Comandante), which screens as the opening night selection of this year’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

As the film opens, Todaro’s damaged body raises questions whether he can continue to serve. Frankly, his wife would not mind caring for him for the rest of their lives, but he just cinches himself up and heads out on another tour aboard the submarine, the Comandante Cappelli.

Todaro’s practice of yoga and meditation are obviously quite unusual for an Italian Naval officer in 1940, but it helps explain his free-thinking humanism. He is also one of the best skippers in the Italian navy. When his crew detects the Belgian-flagged Kabalo, Todaro methodically hunts it down. Technically, Belgium was a neutral country, but the cargo ship was indeed carrying arms to England. How it managed to even get that far must have been a minor miracle, considering Belgium was occupied by Germany on May 28, 1940.

Of course, Todaro’s standing orders were to disregard survivors and get right back to the hunt. Instead, the Comandante gave all 26 Belgians shelter inside the Comandante Cappelli, agreeing to ferry them to safe international shipping lanes, even though that exposed his boat to considerable danger.

Todaro’s “good fascist” credentials can be debated till the swallows fly home, but the “separate peace” aspects of the Kabalo story (which largely happened the way De Angelis and co-screenwriter Sandro Veronesi suggest) ought to resonate with pacifists and conflict resolution workshop hucksters. It is a heck of a story that challenges our preconceived notions of mercy, gratitude, and loyalty. De Angelis clearly wants viewers to ask themselves how they would act were they members of either the Italian or Belgian crews.

However, this is definitely not the second coming of Neo-Realism. Frankly, the early scene of Todaro and his crew singing a sailors’ hymn in unison as the march to their sub, while the “independent contractors” working the docks wish their clients well, runs a real risk of glorifying fascism. Still, it is good cinema.

Morricone at MoMA: Ennio

He worked with American icons like Clint Eastwood and Chet Baker, but Ennio Morricone is just about everyone’s favorite Italian composer. He scored over 500 films and to his credit, Giuseppe Tornatore squeezes as many of them as he can into his two-and-a-half-hour documentary, including several of his own. Fans of the maestro should be reasonably happy with the completeness of Tornatore’s Ennio when it screens as part of MoMA’s Ennio Morricone retrospective.

There is a lot more to Morricone’s career than his Spaghetti Western soundtracks, such as Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars, but those films are definitely the entry point for many Morricone’s admirers. Taking a chronological approach, Tornatore goes back to Morricone’s origins, starting with his John Cage-ish avant-garde ensemble work and his prolific pop arrangements for RCA Italy.

Of course, there is ample discussion of his Western scores and his Giallo work (specifically with Dario Argento, who appears at considerable length). There is also due consideration of Bertolucci’s 1900 and Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, which were savaged during their original truncated American releases, but both films and Morricone’s scores received rapturous critical praise, once they could be appreciated in their entirety.

Tornatore spends a fair amount of time on his own Cinema Paradiso, but it is justified. Somewhat reasonably and logically, Tornatore’s focus is rather Italian-centric. Even though some casual listener/viewers might not recognize several of the Italian films he incorporates, the music they feature and the visuals they accompany are boldly striking.

The Truth About La Dolce Vita, on Film Movement Plus

Giuseppe "Peppino" Amato would have appreciated the notorious behind-the-scenes chaos during the production of Apocalypse Now. While the Vietnam drama nearly killed Coppola and Sheen, the stress of producing Fellini’s La Dolce Vita very directly led to Amato’s financial ruin and early demise. Filmmaker Giuseppi Pedersoli combines traditional documentary elements with re-enactments to tell Amato’s side of the story in The Truth About La Dolce Vita, which premieres Friday on Film Movement Plus.

Arguably, Amato only had himself to blame. He bought the screenplay from Dino De Laurentiis, after receiving the blessing of Padre Pio. He then brought in his frequent producing partner Angelo Rizzoli, who never really got the film and eventually left Amato holding the bag. Throughout much of the increasingly costly production, Amato acted as a go-between, taking heat from Fellini, Rizzoli, and everyone else the director was feuding with.

Throughout Truth, it is clear Pedersoli is showing us Amato’s truth. Fans of Fellini should be warned the hybrid doc often makes the auteur appear to be little more than a spoiled child—and Rizzoli fares even worse. (However, De Laurentiis, seen in archival interviews seems admirably philosophical about losing out on a masterpiece.)

Luigi Petrucci is also quite engaging playing Amato, in what nearly amounts to a one-thesp show. However, his dramatic sequences exclusively focus on the troubled titular production and they are largely drawn from studio memos and trade interviews. As a result, the re-enactment dialogue is a little dry at times.

Umberto Eco: A Library of the World

Umberto Eco became an international bestseller with a mystery about a poisoned book. Yet, probably nobody better loved the look and touch of the printed page, especially those in ancient volumes, than he did. Despite knowing better, he rarely used gloves while perusing the rare, centuries-old tomes in his 50,000-volume collection. David Ferrario takes viewers into the Eco library, to examine the philosophical ideas and eccentric academic fascinations of the late great writer in Umberto Eco: A Library of the World.

Obviously, Eco was not an internet kind of guy. He likens it to the information overload that plagues that hapless central character of Jorge Luis Borges’ “Funes the Memorious,” who was driven mad by his ability to remember every single little detail of his life, no matter how trivial. It does rather make sense Eco was a Borges kind of guy, even though the Argentine fantasist was not writing in the 17^th Century.

Ferrario is particularly interested in Eco’s pessimistic view on the long-term epistemological impact of the internet. To over-simplify matters, he did see a potential for it to make people dumber rather than smarter. He spoke of three types of memory: the organic stored in brains, the vegetal stored on wood and paper, and the mineral stored in silicon. He rather liked the vegetal version.

Eco also had a passion for Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit who wrote richly detailed studies of the natural sciences that were almost entirely wrong. Yet, the systemic logic of his “alternate science” fascinated Eco. It is easy to see the influence of Kircher’s hermetic world view and the rare occult and alchemy books Eco also collected in his novels. Weirdly though, Ferrario spends very little on Eco’s fiction and almost none on the conspiratorial Foucault’s Pendulum, which seems like his most relevant novel for our current times.

Each section of Ferrario’s library culminates in an Eco monologue recited by one of the author’s admirers, in a suitably cinematic library setting. The selections emphasize Eco as an epistemologist. Each reflects his talent for language, but several boil down to rather pithy arguments that a bibliophile affix to their fridge with a cat magnet. However, the writer’s literary fans will learn a good deal about Eco the family man, through warmly engaging interviews with his widow, daughter, son, grandson, and protégé.

Freaks vs. the Reich

The National Socialists had two weird obsessions: purity and the occult. It therefore rather follows that a group of super-heroic circus freaks would be their nemeses. Yet, an increasingly unhinged Nazi pianist has a mad dream of harnessing their powers to save the regime. That sounds like an unlikely Hail Mary scheme, but he knows Germany’s defeat is likely from his drug-induced visions of the future in Gabriele Mainetti’s dark superhero fantasy Freaks vs. the Reich (a.k.a. Freaks Out), which releases today in theaters and on-demand.

Fulvio is the wolfman, Mario is the magnetic clown, Cencio is an albino with an Aquaman-like power over bugs, and Matilde harnesses the power of electricity. She is the real deal, not like Rooney Mara in the inferior Nightmare Alley remake. In fact, all their powers are real, but hers are potentially the most powerful. However, she has issues when it comes to using them to their fullest extent. Her conductivity also somewhat alienates her from humanity, since her touch is potentially fatal. Nevertheless, Cencio still carries a torch for her, which is also creepy, given their apparent age differences.

Nevertheless, the four circus freaks regularly dazzle audiences for old Israel’s traveling sideshow, until the war intervenes. The Germans have invaded their former Italian allies, but at this point of the war, it is not going well for either nation. Franz desperately wants to turn it around for the Reich, but he is probably lucky to be alive, considering he has six fingers on either hand, making him a freak himself. Through liberal ether-huffing, Franz has seen images of the future. As a result, he is convinced only Matilde’s powers can save the Reich.

This is probably the weirdest circus film since Alex de la Iglesia’s The Last Circus (a.k.a. A Sad Trumpet Ballad), which Freaks also resembles in tone. It is far more macabre than most superhero movies, but that is its strength, whereas its weakness is Mainetti’s inclination to excess, especially the two-hour-and-twenty-minute running time.

Be that as it may, Mainetti and co-screenwriter Nicola Guaglianone earn a lot of points for originality, particularly for their distinctive villain, Franz. He is a sinister psychopath, but it is easy to understand how living with his conspicuous “deformity” in German society helped warp him into the monster we see in the film. Those predisposed to object the film uses him to represent the physically different should keep in mind there is also a band of war-amputee partisans in the woods, waging guerilla attacks against the Germans.

Argento’s Dark Glasses, on Shudder

Looking elegant is often a requirement for giallo characters and Diana is definitely stylish in her dark sunglasses. Tragically, they are now part of her mandatory uniform, after she was blinded during a stalker’s attack. As she acclimates to her new reality, she must also fend off the obsessive serial killer in giallo-master Dario Argento’s Dark Glasses, which premieres Thursday on Shudder.

In a bit of foreshadowing, Diana irritates her eyes while observing a solar eclipse. Remember kids, keep making those pinhole cameras. Unfortunately, Diana’s chosen field of sex work often attracts psychopaths, both movies and real-life. The man with a black van has already slashed several of her colleagues to death. That will be a white van, after he transfers some paint during his latest escape.

Diana was supposed to be his next victim, but she technically escaped with her life when he rammed her car into incoming traffic. Not only was she blinded, young Chin’s Chinese immigrant father was killer and his mother was rendered comatose, with little hope of revival. Initially, he resents Diana, but they soon form an unlikely bond. He will be part of her support system, along with Rita, a volunteer counselor for the newly blind, and Nerea, her new guide dog—especially Nerea.

Dark Glasses is a decent psycho-stalker horror film, but it feels remarkably similar to Argento’s Do You Like Hitchcock in its tone and intimate scoop. However, the former film also knowingly riffed on and channeled Hitchcock, which gave it a more distinctive identity.

In the case of Glasses, Argento gives viewers a blind woman and a young orphan in jeopardy, for double the manipulation. However, it represents a return to his signature style, after the much-maligned gothic horror of Dracula 3D. Honestly, it still looks cool. The bloody violence pops off the screen, just as it does in his best films. It is based on a past screenplay that was mothballed due to the production company’s insolvency, but it feels like a deliberate effort to get back to basics.

Faith: Cloistered with the Techno Warriors of Light

The Warriors of Light are an Italian Catholic splinter-group that leads a rigorous cloistered life, adapted from Shaolin monasticism. Yet, this immersive documentary looks like it could have been shot by a fashion photographer from the school of Herb Ritts or Bruce Weber. There is little bodily shame or body fat. The latter logically follows when you train for an ultimate battle against the forces of evil. They might be a cult, but physically they are chiseled and runway-ready, as captured by the lens of the late documentarian Valentina Pedicini in Faith, which starts streaming today on Film Movement Plus.

The doc starts with a ritual that looks more like a rave. The Master of this “monastery” tucked away in the picturesque Italian hills is often shirtless, contributing to the general vibe of sexuality that openly fuels their community. However, not all is well. One disciple is writing a detailed “confession” that promises to be considerably longer and juicier than St. Augustine’s. Regardless, the Master pushes his recruits to the absolute breaking point, with techno blaring from his smart phone that would not sound out of place during a Mortal Kombat training montage.

Amid this super-charged setting, the Master’s partner raises their young children. Happily, it is not nearly as intense an experience for them. Just the regular head-shaving, before foraging for roots and herbs with their mother.

When Pedicini was on-site with the Warriors of Light, the anticipation of apocalyptic tidings might have seen incomprehensibly alien. Since then, there has been a worldwide pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China ringing Taiwan with warships. Maybe let’s not scoff too heartily. Nevertheless, the harrowing scenes in which the Master breaks down his acolytes, pushing them beyond their limits, is textbook cult indoctrination—and it is painful to watch.

Argento at Lincoln Center: Do You Like Hitchcock?

Dario Argento is considered a Giallo master, but has also taken on classic staples of horror, including Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, Poe, and to some extent the terrors of wax museums. It totally makes sense he would also try to channel Alfred Hitchcock, who basically started the whole slasher tradition. You can also see some precursor Giallo elements in Dial M for Murder, especially those gloves. The homages are pretty clever in Do You Like Hitchcock, which screens as part of the ongoing Beware of Dario Argento retrospective at Film at Lincoln Center.

Giulio is your stereotypical film geek, who often observes his sexy neighbors Rear Window-style, especially Sasha Zerboni. As a result, he can’t help noticing Zerboni and another attractive woman bonding in the video store over Strangers on a Train. When Zerboni’s wealthy but controlling mother is subsequently murdered, at a time when her daughter was conveniently alibied, Giulio immediately suspects they arranged to “switch murders.”

Of course, his girlfriend Arianna (who really ought to be out of his league) thinks he is a nut. However, when an unseen stranger breaks into his apartment, Giulio realizes he might be on to something, so he starts obsessively snooping around both women.

The stripped-down simplicity of DYLH really serves it well. Compared to Argento’s previous films, there is considerably less blood and gore in this made-for-Italian-TV production, but there are still all the hallmarks of Argento’s hallmark Giallo style (like the close-ups on gloved hands and tumblers turning in locks). Perhaps most importantly, Argento really gives us a full sense of the Torino neighborhood, very much like Hitchcock did for the building facing Jimmy Stewart’s apartment in Rear Window.

Smog, featuring Chet Baker Trumpet Solos

The film is Italian, from the early 1960s, so the existential angst is suavely stylish. Yet, the setting is Los Angeles, so the weather is nice—but the air quality is lacking. Best of all, it sounds terrific, thanks to Piero Umiliani’s soundtrack, featuring Chet Baker’s trumpet solos. An elite Italian lawyer will be immersed in California car culture and expat ambitions throughout Franco Rossi’s Smog, which screens tomorrow at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Vittorio Ciocchetti is connecting through the recently completed, space-age-looking LAX, on his way to Mexico City, where he will handle a quickie divorce for a well-heeled client. Since he is a VIP customer, Ciocchetti need not spend his layover with the rest of the rabble. No, the airline lets him circumvent customs, so he can spend the day in LA.

Of course, even back then, enjoying LA without a car is easier said than done. Somehow, he makes his way to a gallery showing an Italian artist. There he meets Mario Scarpelli, an ambitious immigrant fixing the AV system. Deducing Ciocchetti could be a valuable contact, Scarpelli volunteers to show him the city and introduce the lawyer to his social circle. Through the younger man, Ciocchetti meets Gabriella, an alluring expat, who has apparently made good. She seems to have the means to buy the modernist Stahl House, but she hasn’t moved in yet. She just visits to swim in the pool.

Smog is not exactly a plotty narrative, but it was quite a shoot, visiting dozens of LA locations. It really is an early forerunner to Lost in Translation, but there is also a clash of ideologies and cultures, between the tacky, striving Scarpelli and the standoffish, old world Ciocchetti. Even though Scarpelli resorts to some less than edifying behavior, the cold, detached Ciocchetti might even come out of the film looking worse, not that such judgments mattered a fig to Rossi. This was definitely an exercise in style, steeped in the aesthetics of mid-century European art cinema.

It also sounds amazing thanks to Umiliani’s themes and Baker’s solos. This is a soundtrack I’ve listened to dozens of times, without having first seen the film to know what visuals the tunes accompanied. The music definitely stands on its own, particularly “Twilight in Los Angeles,” “Thinkin’ Blues,” “Smog,” and “Alone in a Crowd.” As a notable bonus, Helen Merrill also sings two dreamy noir selections, including a vocal arrangement of “Smog,” which perfectly match the film’s dusky vibe.

The Invisible Witness, on OVID.tv

It isn't Korea's Miss Granny with at least seven international remakes under its belt or Italy’s Perfect Strangers with fourteen global remakes and counting, but Spain’s The Invisible Guest is not doing too badly with two to its credit. If you have seen Oriol Paulo’s Invisible Guest or Sujoy Ghosh’s Badla than you generally know what is in store for entrepreneur Adriano Doria in Stefano Mordini’s Italian remake, The Invisible Witness, which starts streaming Wednesday on OVID.tv.

As some viewers might remember, Doria found himself in deep gnocchi when he woke up in a locked hotel room, near the bludgeoned corpse of his mistress, Laura Vitale and 100K pile of Euros. He thought they were there to meet a blackmailer, but the encounter took a violent turn instead. The cops want to pin the murder on him and the media is loving the feeding frenzy, so his corporate lawyer has arranged a late-night meeting with high-powered criminal defense attorney Virginia Ferrara to plan their strategy.

Ferrara can immediately tell Doria is not fully leveling with her, so she drags the whole ugly truth out of him. As many of us know, the story really starts a few months prior, when Doria and Vitale were involved in a fatal auto accident while returning from a secret romantic getaway. They did not handle it well.

It is a little strange watching a film with the same twist ending for the third time, but with a different cast. For one thing, it inspires new appreciation for Badla, because it makes clear how much the gender switch of the entrepreneur and the jury consultant/criminal lawyer really freshened up the film. Weirdly, for viewers of the previous takes, the suspense in Witness largely comes from knowing what is going on behind-the-scenes. That would really be impressive if it was intentional on Mordini’s part.

CFF ’20: Fulci for Fake

He was the second “Godfather of Gore.” Herschell Gordon Lewis was the first filmmaker to be dubbed with the title, but Lucio Fulci was a genuine film-stylist many consider a true auteur. He made films in nearly every genre, including White Fang, starring Franco Nero, but his reputation firmly rests on his giallo horror films of the 1960s and 1970s. Fulci, the filmmaker and the father, is profiled in Simone Scafidi’s slightly hybrid-ish documentary, Fulci for Fake, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival.

Scafidi (a.k.a. “Saigon”) sets up the film with a fictionalized conceit. Supposedly, actor Nicola Nocella will be playing Fulci in a biopic, but to better understand the man he is to portray, he must learn from those who knew him best. Therefore, he is the one ostensibly conducting all the on-camera interviews. Frankly, it is a questionable device, since the film still largely functions as a traditional, career-surveying documentary. Of course, that also means Fulci fans will indeed learn quite a bit about the master.

As one would hope, we do indeed get a fair supply of behind-the-scenes dishing as well as critical analysis of Fulci’s major giallos. Fans will be interested to hear from Fulci’s frequent cinematographer Sergio Salvati and composer Fabio Frizzi, as well as his protégé, Michele Soavi (who directed Cemetery Man and The Sect). However, the real surprising emotional centerpiece of the film are the reminiscences of Fulci’s daughter, Camilla Fulci, whose unfortunate accident profoundly affected her father. She is also well-qualified to discuss his work, having served as a 1^st assistant director or script supervisor on many of his films.

Ferrante Fever: Those Infectious Neapolitan Novels

Elena Ferrante is like a Thomas Pynchon for East Coast book clubs. Her readers are deeply fascinated by her novels, even though they have no idea who she really is or what she looks like. That mystery is the sizzle used to sell the literary steak in Giacomo Durzi’s documentary Ferrante Fever, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Ferrante is having a bit of a moment these days. HBO has renewed their adaption of her so-called Neapolitan Novels for a second season and Film Movement has released a two-DVD set of Italian films based on her work. In 2016, Time magazine listed her as one of the “100 Most Influential” people of the year, but that seems like a questionable call, considering Ferrante has deliberately opted out of playing the role of public intellectual. Yet, in some ways, her anonymity has propelled her into the public consciousness.

Of course, for serious literary figures like Elizabeth Strout and Jonathan Franzen, Ferrante is all about the words on the printed page and any intrigue involving her secret identity is beside the point. They genuinely mean it, but that makes Durzi’s film a bit of a bait-and-switch, potentially luring viewers in with the Ferrante mystery, but spending most of its time on her language and themes.

As a result, Fever is very definitely a film for Ferrante fans. Indeed, there is a good deal of analysis of her use of Naples as a backdrop, but it rather dances around the city’s reputation as a Camorra stronghold, even though Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano is one of Durzi’s expert commentators. On the other hand, Franzen is almost too spot-on to discuss Ferrante’s aversion to publicity, given his well-documented kerfuffle with the Oprah Book Club.

That is all well and good, but neither Franzen or his colleagues really convey a sense to non-fans why they are so enthralled by Ferrante’s books. Yes, we understand they have a strong sense of place and ring with a voice of honesty, but there are a lot of books with literary merit out there. Most viewers will also be disappointed the film makes no attempt whatsoever to create some kind of possible profile for Ferrante. After all, part of the fascination is the unlikely possibility Ferrante is a schlubby dude that works as a janitor in Palermo, who is cat-fishing the Italian literary establishment.

It is nice to see a documentary that takes literature and book publishing so seriously, but the tone and depth of Fever is better suited for Europa Editions’ sales conference than a film to see in theaters. Since it never really lives up to its mysterious promise, Ferrante Fever is likely to disappoint when it opens tomorrow (3/8) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

Sicilian Ghost Story: It is and It Isn’t

Forget about The Godfather, the book and movie, as well as any other form of popular entertainment that suggests the Mafia abides by a code of honor. There was nothing honorable about the abduction and murder of twelve-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo. He was the son of a Mafia informant held for over 700 days, who wasted away to nearly nothing before his captors finally strangled him and broke down his body in a vat of acid. The true crime that outraged Italy gets refracted through a lens of magical realism in Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza’s Sicilian Ghost Story (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Luna has it bad for Giuseppe—real bad. Despite his natural arrogance and his family’s considerable wealth, Giuseppe reciprocates her interest. Their budding couple-status has Luna on cloud nine, until Giuseppe stops coming to class. He is gone for days without any explanation from his family. She starts coming round his family’s villa, but his grandfather brusquely turns her way each time. Eventually, they have to come clean. Giuseppe has been kidnapped by the mafia, to force his father to recant his testimony.

Although the title is somewhat deceptive, there are indeed several kinds of ghosts in SGS. The longer Giuseppe is held incommunicado, while hope of his safe return steadily fades, the more frequently Luna experiences vivid and tactile visions and waking dreams of the much-abused lad. In fact, she starts to believe she has even physically interacted with him.

SCS has all the grit of recent, un-glamorized Mafia dramas, including The Sicilian Girl and Grassadonia & Piazza’s own Salvo, but it is subtler and much more visually striking. Some of the images they craft are just arrestingly tragic and beautiful. Soap Skin’s ambio-minimalist pop tune “Safe with Me” also perfectly underscores the film’s otherworldly and elegiac vibe.

Julia Jedlikowska is absolutely riveting as Luna. In many ways, she is a difficult kid to like, but her intensity and tenacity just blows everyone else off the screen. Gaetano Fernandez is mostly just okay as Giuseppe, but he has a truly devastating pseudo-soliloquy late in the film. Vicenzo Amato also has some nice scenes as Luna’s working-class father.

Throughout SGS, it is unclear whether Luna’s fugue interludes are merely subconscious reveries or legitimately supernatural. Grassadonia & Piazza maintain a sense of mystery regarding these and other aspects of the film. It is eerie and horrifying, regardless of genre distinctions.  Recommended for sophisticated viewers, especially those who appreciate cinematic fables, Sicilian Ghost Story opens this Friday (11/30), in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

ICFF ’18: The Girl in the Fog

Det. Vogel’s weapon of choice is particularly dangerous. He wields the media. A well-timed feeding frenzy will cause many hardened serial killers to reveal themselves. However, there is always the risk they will turn on him. That happened during his last investigation, the co-called “Mutilator Case.” He has come to Avechot in the Italian Alps in search of the missing Anna Lou Kastner, but the restoration of his reputation is his real goal in Donato Carrisi’s The Girl in the Fog (trailer here), adapted from his own novel, which screens up north, as part of the Italian Contemporary Film Festival.

Two months after Kastner’s presumed abduction, Vogel is admitted to the hospital in a near catatonic state. He had a nasty auto accident, but the blood covering his clothes is not his own. Staff head-shrinker Dr. Augusto Flores is roused to interrogate the interrogator, whose investigation unfolds in media res.

Vogel is relatively sensitive while dealing with the Kastner family, but when they are not around, he is openly contemptuous of their Evangelical faith. He also clashes with the provincial police. However, it turns out Anna Lou really is the pious small-town girl she presented herself to be. She is no Laura Palmer, which is good for his media campaign. About halfway through, circumstances will cast suspicion on Prof. Loris Martini, who teaches English at Anna Lou’s high school. It is all highly circumstantial, but that does not trouble Vogel or his media hounds. At this point, whatever you’re assuming—don’t.

Fog is a little slow going at first, but once it has all its pieces in place, it down shifts into an especially dark and cynical psycho thriller. Compared to this film, Gone Girl is practically a love letter to Nancy Grace and the tabloid cable news media. Even though Carrisi’s novel has been translated into English, it is hard to see any mid-sized distributors taking this one on. Think of it as the absolute polar opposite of Spotlight.

Toni Servillo was born to play brainy incisive characters like Vogel. Of course, it is great fun to watch him cutting off fools at the knees. He is rock-solid as Vogel, but the detective is still rather a cold fish.  Hopefully, we can eventually see him play a really flamboyant smarty-pants sleuth in the Sherlock Holmes tradition. Plus, the Italian-fluent Jean Reno is no mere walk-on as Dr. Flores. Their periodic framing banter holds a good deal of significance. As Martini, Alessio Boni will have viewings pulling their hair out in frustration, but that is certainly a sign of effectiveness. Lorenzo Richelmy also makes the most his key third act moments as Det. Borghi, the junior copper assigned to Vogel.

Much like Hereditary, Fog also uses scale models to help set the scene and establish geographical proximities in the small hamlet of Avechot. In this case, it is not quite as creepy (how could it be?), but still definitely heightens the sinister vibe. Cinematographer Federico Masiero does his part to dial up the moodiness too. Basically, this is a quality Euro thriller, much like what mystery fans have come to expect from Scandinavian imports. Highly recommended, The Girl in the Fog screens this Wednesday (6/20) in Toronto and Tuesday (6/19) and Thursday (6/21) in Vancouver, as part of ICFF 2018.

Open Roads ’18: Equilibrium

What is the proper role for a priest? Should he fight for justice or maintain the balance of power, like a 1970s State Department bureaucrat, who read too much Bismarck? It seems like a no-brainer in theory, but would you be tempted to opt for stability, if you had to chose in the real world? Don Giuseppe will make his choice and his parishioners will make theirs when he is transferred to his native Campania in Vincenzo Marra’s Equilibrium (trailer here), which screens during Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2018.

Don Giuseppe has always been actively engaged in the world. He did life-altering missionary work in Africa and he has steadfastly ministered to the illegal aliens congregated at a migrant shelter in Rome. Frankly, he is concerned he could become a little too engaged when a social worker admits her romantic feelings for him. To preserve his calling, Don Giuseppe requests and is granted a transfer to a blighted district just north of Naples.

When the good father first meets Don Antonio, whom he will succeed, the veteran cleric seems to be quite the crusader himself through his campaign against the illegal noxious waste dumping in the hills above town. However, it soon becomes clear this is cheap activism, since nobody claims responsibility for the dumping and everyone generally agrees it is a less than ideal practice. However, when it comes to standing up for the vulnerable in the community, Don Antonio is much more circumspect.

Frankly, Don Antonio has done his best to intimidate the isolated Assunta into accepting her boyfriend’s sexual abuse of her daughter. Unfortunately, she happens to live in the housing project that is the center of the local drug dealers’ transactions. Having the cops pay a visit would be bad for business. For the sake of peace in the valley, Don Antonio is willing to sacrifice Assunta and her daughter—and the cops and dealers are right there with him. However, Don Giuseppe will not play that game.

Equilibrium is a deeply moving film that challenges what faith really means and how it should be manifested in the real world. Marra filmed docu-style, employing many street level long-takes. He recruited many non-professional actors from the region, scoring a double jackpot with Mimmo Borrelli and Roberto del Gaudio, who are both tremendous as Don Giuseppe and Don Antonio, respectively. Borrelli is a quiet marvel, expressing so much questioned faith and Christian love through subtle and restrained looks and gestures. In contrast, del Gaudio is flamboyantly charismatic and chillingly Machiavellian. Astrid Meloni, one of the few professional ringers, adds further layers of compelling human messiness as Veronica, Don Giuseppe’s source of temptation.

It is impossible to watch Equilibrium without hearing echoes of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandals. It is easy to damn in retrospect, but the film clearly challenges viewers to ask what they would have done if they were cops, social workers, or lay leaders trying to hold their communities together. Throughout the film, Marra shows in concrete terms why ostensibly responsible people often opt for stability over moral principle, while never endorsing or excusing their expediency. It is a tough, powerful film. Very highly recommended, Equilibrium screens tomorrow (6/3) and Wednesday (6/6) at the Walter Reade as part of this year’s Open Roads.

Open Roads ’18: Boys Cry

It is pretty depressing when getting initiated into an organized crime clan is the highest ambition two meatheads can aspire to. Unfortunately, it is all too attainable. The only price is whatever might be left of their souls. There will be money and hedonistic pleasures in the short term, but don’t count on much of a long run for Mirko and Manolo in the D’Innocenzo Brothers’ Boys Cry (trailer here), which screens during Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2018.

Even though they are enrolled in some kind of community college hotel-restaurant management program, Mirko and Manolo are not very serious about it. Their corner of Rome’s suburbs does not encourage optimism or long-term planning. They demonstrate why well enough on their own when they kill a stealthy pedestrian in a hit-and-run. Initially, they are panicked about potential repercussions, until Manolo’s wannabe-gangster father realizes this is a good thing.

It turns out their victim was a snitch wanted by one of the local clans. Manolo’s father brokers his son’s apprenticeship with the clan, claiming he deliberately mowed the so-called “grass” down. Suddenly, Mirko is bent out of shape hearing Manolo taking credit for his negligent homicide. However, his friend quickly brings him into the fold, recruiting him to assist on what will be their first official hit.

You can guess the general trajectory of their grubby lives from there, but it is especially harrowing to watch Mirko seeming lose all remaining vestiges of human decency. He will drive away his girlfriend Ambra (who was frankly out of his league) and his ailing mother. This is a gritty, grimy film, but its takeaway comes through loud and clear: even when there is substantial monetary renumeration, crime still doesn’t pay.

It is a grim milieu, but Matteo Olivetti lights up the screen with his hostile intensity and barely contained energy. As Mirko, he steals the picture outright from Andrea Carpenzano’s more snide and reserved Manolo. Olivetti also has the benefit of playing scenes opposite Milena Mancini, who is quite a supportive co-star, while still being exquisitely tragic as his mother Alessia. It would be interesting to see them play mother and son again, but in a completely different context.

This is a riveting movie, in a horrifying train-wreck kind of way. Shallow, kneejerk critics will probably be put off by the misogynistic and homophobic attitudes expressed by the two gangsters-in-training, but they are thugs. Everything they say and do is awful, almost by definition. The D’Innocenzos (Damiano & Fabio) water nothing down. This sure isn’t Bugsy Malone, but Mirko and Manolo really aren’t a heck of a lot older than that. Recommended for fans of the new wave of naturalistic gangster films (like Gomorrah and Salvo), Boys Cry screens Sunday (6/3) and Tuesday (6/5) at the Walter Reade as part of this year’s Open Roads.

Open Roads ’18: Naples in Veils

This is the other Naples—the city we never see in films like Gomorrah. It is a center of great art and architecture, but death remains a constant presence there. Indeed, those cobblestone alleyways are both romantic and ominous in Ferzan Ozpetek’s Naples in Veils (trailer here), which screens during Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2018.

After one scorching hot night with Andrea, Adriana is convincing he must be the one. Therefore, she is rather disappointed when he fails to show for their date the next day. The good news is he did not intentionally stand her up. The bad news is he happens to be on her slab at the medical examiner’s office. He wasn’t merely murdered. He was also blinded and disfigured. Looks like a Camorra warning killing to us, but nobody comes to that conclusion in this film.

Already reeling from horror and disappointment, Adriana starts seeing Andrea’s doppelganger throughout the city. That would be Luca, his twin brother, who was separately adopted out while both were still in infancy. Luca’s planned meeting with Andrea never happened, but he needs little encouragement to pick up with Adriana where his brother left off. Of course, they both agree to keep his kept-man presence in her flat secret, for fear his brother’s killers will then come looking for him. This definitely includes the police and even Antonio, the rumpled detective falling for her. Much to her own surprise, Adriana also starts feels a degree of attraction to him as well, further complicating matters.

The Naples of Gomorrah is nowhere to be found in the lush, sophisticated Veils, which should do wonders for the city’s tourist trade. The locales are exquisitely cinematic, while the drama itself is unapologetically steamy. It mostly qualifies as a psychological thriller in the tradition of De Palma’s Obsession, but there are also oblique hints of the supernatural. Yet, the really cool thing about the film is the extent to which its twists and turns are rooted in the city’s macabre lore.

Giovanna Mezzogiorno is absolutely terrific as the haunted (in whichever sense of the word) Adriana, proving you do not need to look like a CGI-enhanced supermodel to heat up the screen. Nobody will nod off during her scenes with Alessandro Borghi (as both brothers), but she is at her best playing with and off Adriana’s extended family and family friends, who constitute Naples old guard. Anna Buonaiuto is wonderfully tart-tongued and regal as Aunt Adele, while Beppe Barra is practically the soul of Naples incarnate as old ribald Pasquale.

Frankly, the merits of the ending are debatable, but it is a pleasure getting there. Watching Veils is like a sipping a series of cappuccinos on the city’s piazzas. Ozpetek masterfully commands the film’s seductive mood and even manages to pull off a surprise or two through misdirection. It may very well be his best film yet. Very highly recommended, Naples in Veils screens this Saturday (6/2) at the Walter Reade as part of this year’s Open Roads (and it can also be seen at the Seattle International Film Festival on 6/2, 6/5, and 6/6).

Open Roads ’18: Rainbow—A Private Affair

It seems cosmically unfair that Italian writer Beppe Fenoglio died of Bronchial cancer at the age of forty, as surviving WWII as an Italian partisan. However, he has continued to have a literary presence through the posthumous publication of a number of works, including this novella of love and war. Frankly, the two are not so easy to distinguish in Rainbow: A Private Affair (trailer here), the final film collaboration from the Taviani Brothers, Paolo and Vittorio, which screens during Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2018.

Before he was a partisan, Milton was a student of English literature—hence his nickname. He also carried a torch for the free-spirited Fulvia, whom he often visited at her family’s summer estate, along with their mutual friend Giorgio. It was sort of a Jules & Jim style triangle. However, the revelation Fulvia might have favored Giorgio, perhaps even in carnal terms, has Milton profoundly distracted from the war. Fortunately, his comrades are also Italian, so they can understand his inconvenient shift in priorities.

Determined to learn the truth, Milton obtains leave to visit Giorgio, who is also a partisan, attached to a different brigade operating around the Langhe region. However, as soon as he arrives, Milton learns his friend (or rival) has been arrested by the Blackshirts. This propels Milton’s desperate scramble to capture a “roach” he can exchange for Giorgio, but his motives are not exactly clear. He wants to hear the truth from Giorgio directly, yet his loyalty towards his friend also seems genuine, at least to some extent.

Vittorio Taviani passed away a little over one month ago, but he and his brother still show a fine command of their craft with their final outing as a filmmaking tandem. In fact, it is a fitting capstone for their work, given its aching romanticism. It is also rather personal, even limited in scope, as the title would suggest. Yet, despite all Milton’s heartsick gloominess and death-seeking behavior, it is ultimately a life-affirming film.

Luca Marinelli broods for all he is worth as Milton, but ironically, his most memorable and moving scenes are played with neither Fulvia or Giorgio. In fact, they both seem too shallow to be worth his anxiety, as portrayed by Valentina Bellè and Lorenzo (blonder than he was in Marco Polo) Richelmy. However, there several small but brilliant supporting turns, such as Antonella Attili as the austere caretaker of Fulvia’s family villa and Andrea Di Maria as a roach who fancies himself a jazz drummer.

Arguably, Marinelli’s real co-star is Judy Garland, whose rendition of “Over the Rainbow” Fulvia plays incessantly. Giuliano Taviani (Vittorio’s son) and Carmelo Travia nicely incorporate the tune into their lush, somewhat jazz-influenced soundtrack, but it would have been much cooler if they’d used a Billie Holiday song. Regardless, cinematographer Simon Zampagni fully captures the ominous beauty of the fog-shrouded Langhe foothills. Throughout it all, the Tavianis deftly maintain the mysterious, mystical atmosphere, without indulging in excessive pretentions or padding. It is a lovely little film that serves as an apt coda on their storied careers together. Highly recommended, Rainbow: A Private Affair screens Friday (6/1) and the following Monday (6/4) as part of this year’s Open Roads.