Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
June 6-12
at Walter Reade Theater
There are certain dichotomies and associations anyone interested in “New Italian Cinema” must accept before they attend the Film Society at Lincoln Center’s annual Open Roads: New Italian Cinema program.
First: Young people are smarter and more resourceful when it comes to contemporary issues than the old. In The Right Distance, Giovanni (Giovanni Capovilla), the teenage upstart journalist is not only more resourceful but more capable than the old guard of journalists and lawyers that waste their time blaming the wrong man in a local mystery.
Secondly, aging thirtysomethings want their youth back just as much as old folks do because pretending to be young and naive just doesn’t cut it anymore. In Don’t Think About It, Stefano (Dino Abbrescia), an aging rocker finds himself at the end of his rope as his audience gets younger while he remains the same age. He returns to his childhood home to sort out his problems but only discovers that the family business is in trouble, he’s forced to reevaluate his responsibilities and stop living with his head in the clouds.
Next, the old ways of thinking may no longer apply to today’s problems but, boy, was life simpler back then! Alberto (Giuseppe Battiston), Stefano’s brother in Don’t Think About It, is swimming in debt; he can’t take care of his two kids or make his now-separated wife happy nor can he kiss the asses of his bank advisors, causing one of them to snarl, “Your father knew what to do.”
To complicate matters, the past may seem idyllic, but it was a lot of hard work. In the Factory trains an eye on a generation of post-WWII factory workers who risked life, limb and most importantly, family, so that later on their kids could be employed, self-reliant and happy. They won’t be as previous titles at Open Roads attest, like La Febbre (Open Roads 2005) or One Out of Two (Open Roads 2007), two films about young businessmen (both played by Fabio Volo) who discover that the suit-and-tie world just isn’t for them.
Finally, foreigners aren’t threatening. No, seriously. The culprit in The Right Distance has pearly white teeth and even whiter skin, not Hassan (Ahmed Hefiane), the Tunisian car mechanic.
In other words, the old can simultaneously rejuvenate and frustrate today’s youth. While they want to leave behind old-world prejudices and formulas, they will continue to haunt “New Italian Cinema” for some time to come. This leaves little to no room for new imported voices with anything to say except, “I wish I could find my own voice, but I can’t leave behind my responsibilities to chase my dreams.”
Within those staid preoccupations, there are some diverting alternatives, like Ferzan Ozpetek’s Saturn In Opposition. His fourth film at Open Roads, Saturn is very much a “New Italian” film: While it insists on a friends-as-family model, everything leads back home in the end.
Like any good “New Italian” film, Saturn insists on the importance of sharing one’s emotions after tragedy strikes at home, which makes sense considering how often it strikes in these films. When tragedy strikes Davide (Pierfrancisco Favino) and Lorenzo (Luca Argentero), their friends gather around them. Later, they struggle with Lorenzo’s parents to understand and reconcile their concepts of fidelity and happiness.
Ozpetek is the foremost purveyor of alternative lifestyle melodramas, but Saturn is nothing new from him. It’s too similar to his most celebrated film, His Secret Life, the story of Antonia (Margherita Buy) who must come to terms with her husband’s recent death and Michele (Stefano Accorsi), his lover. Tragedy brings together the old and the new in both Secret and Saturn, and while Saturn says nothing Secret didn’t, certain scenes of private anguish and Ozpetek’s expressive camerawork show how far he’s come since then.
Similarly, Andrea’s Poporati’s The Sweet and the Bitter breaks no new ground but satisfies because it perfectly capitalizes on its operatic roots. Rosario “Saro” Scordia’s (the superb Luigi Lo Cascio, of Best of Youth fame) thinks of the Sicilian mafia in the tradition of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, where “men of honor” settle matters with the spilling of blood. In a year filled with domestic woes, the epic is the perfect antidote to contemporary domestic woes.
June 6-12
at Walter Reade Theater
There are certain dichotomies and associations anyone interested in “New Italian Cinema” must accept before they attend the Film Society at Lincoln Center’s annual Open Roads: New Italian Cinema program.
First: Young people are smarter and more resourceful when it comes to contemporary issues than the old. In The Right Distance, Giovanni (Giovanni Capovilla), the teenage upstart journalist is not only more resourceful but more capable than the old guard of journalists and lawyers that waste their time blaming the wrong man in a local mystery.
Secondly, aging thirtysomethings want their youth back just as much as old folks do because pretending to be young and naive just doesn’t cut it anymore. In Don’t Think About It, Stefano (Dino Abbrescia), an aging rocker finds himself at the end of his rope as his audience gets younger while he remains the same age. He returns to his childhood home to sort out his problems but only discovers that the family business is in trouble, he’s forced to reevaluate his responsibilities and stop living with his head in the clouds.
Next, the old ways of thinking may no longer apply to today’s problems but, boy, was life simpler back then! Alberto (Giuseppe Battiston), Stefano’s brother in Don’t Think About It, is swimming in debt; he can’t take care of his two kids or make his now-separated wife happy nor can he kiss the asses of his bank advisors, causing one of them to snarl, “Your father knew what to do.”
To complicate matters, the past may seem idyllic, but it was a lot of hard work. In the Factory trains an eye on a generation of post-WWII factory workers who risked life, limb and most importantly, family, so that later on their kids could be employed, self-reliant and happy. They won’t be as previous titles at Open Roads attest, like La Febbre (Open Roads 2005) or One Out of Two (Open Roads 2007), two films about young businessmen (both played by Fabio Volo) who discover that the suit-and-tie world just isn’t for them.
Finally, foreigners aren’t threatening. No, seriously. The culprit in The Right Distance has pearly white teeth and even whiter skin, not Hassan (Ahmed Hefiane), the Tunisian car mechanic.
In other words, the old can simultaneously rejuvenate and frustrate today’s youth. While they want to leave behind old-world prejudices and formulas, they will continue to haunt “New Italian Cinema” for some time to come. This leaves little to no room for new imported voices with anything to say except, “I wish I could find my own voice, but I can’t leave behind my responsibilities to chase my dreams.”
Within those staid preoccupations, there are some diverting alternatives, like Ferzan Ozpetek’s Saturn In Opposition. His fourth film at Open Roads, Saturn is very much a “New Italian” film: While it insists on a friends-as-family model, everything leads back home in the end.
Like any good “New Italian” film, Saturn insists on the importance of sharing one’s emotions after tragedy strikes at home, which makes sense considering how often it strikes in these films. When tragedy strikes Davide (Pierfrancisco Favino) and Lorenzo (Luca Argentero), their friends gather around them. Later, they struggle with Lorenzo’s parents to understand and reconcile their concepts of fidelity and happiness.
Ozpetek is the foremost purveyor of alternative lifestyle melodramas, but Saturn is nothing new from him. It’s too similar to his most celebrated film, His Secret Life, the story of Antonia (Margherita Buy) who must come to terms with her husband’s recent death and Michele (Stefano Accorsi), his lover. Tragedy brings together the old and the new in both Secret and Saturn, and while Saturn says nothing Secret didn’t, certain scenes of private anguish and Ozpetek’s expressive camerawork show how far he’s come since then.
Similarly, Andrea’s Poporati’s The Sweet and the Bitter breaks no new ground but satisfies because it perfectly capitalizes on its operatic roots. Rosario “Saro” Scordia’s (the superb Luigi Lo Cascio, of Best of Youth fame) thinks of the Sicilian mafia in the tradition of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, where “men of honor” settle matters with the spilling of blood. In a year filled with domestic woes, the epic is the perfect antidote to contemporary domestic woes.
