New Italian Cinema

By Dennis Harvey

Italy arguably had a larger hand than any other single country in the creation of a post-World War II U.S. audience for foreign “art” films.

Nothing drove that growth at first more than Italian “neorealist” films by Roberto Rossellini (“Open City,” “Paisan”), Vittorio de Sica (“Shoeshine,” “The Bicycle Thief”) and others. These movies created a new cinematic language in their gritty, quasi-documentary dramatization of poor rural and urban dwellers struggling desperately to survive in the literally ruined landscape of a country paid the price for choosing the wrong side in the world’s first truly global conflict.

A few years later, when arthouse cinema was really catching fire, Italy offered Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti, Pasolini, Bertolucci, and so forth. Their movies were arthouse “events,” must-sees to be endlessly discussed by everyone from liberal-arts students to urban boho types to, eventually, the more culturally savvy suburbanites.

These days, things have drastically changed. Few Italian movies make it to American cinemas now, for various reasons — including the fact that most are pretty routine. (Teen sex comedies are currently the most popular local screen fare.) But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still good films worth catching… if you have the chance, of course.

Which is why the NICE (a.k.a. New Italian Cinema) is an annual bright spot on the calendar for our city’s sizable Italian-heritage populace and Italophiles of all stripes. Co-presented by SF Film Society and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, NICE provides a valuable opportunity to catch up on the better recent Italian features you aren’t likely to see in local theatrical or even festival dates.

One thing you might find missing from the rollcall of famous Italian auteurs mentioned above is a female director. Apart from Lina Wertmuller (a frequent past NICE guest), few women have gotten far enough in the industry — behind the camera, that is, not in front of it — to raise a profile internationally. It’s refreshing, therefore, that the 2007 NICE both opens and closes with highlighted features by women, one will be on hand for a personal tribute that encompasses two of her past successes as writer-director.

That would be Francesca Comencini, who’s made a name for herself in recent years as a intelligent observer of Italy’s age-old social and political ails — which seldom seem to change all that much whether we’re talking Medici, Mussolini or Berlusconi. Her latest, “Our Country,” is an ambitious multistrand drama set in Milan, center of the nation’s financial and fashion industries.

Among those caught up in its sweeping indictment of widespread corruption are a business tycoon whose stock insider trading is being avidly investigated by a female Finance Police officer; the much younger fashion-model mistress he’s neglecting; the handsome, married working-class guy she has a one-night-stand with, to his eventual misfortune; a reformed ex-con who wants to rescue the Eastern European woman he loves from her streetwalking, pimp-abused life; and many more. “Our Country” is one of those “Magnolia”-style ensemble pieces where nearly everyone is desperate or doomed. Their paths crisscross with a little too much authorial rigging. But it’s nonetheless compelling stuff, gracefully directed and potently acted.

After dropping out of college as a philosophy student in the early 80s, Comencini launched a film career that attracted some admiring critical attention — but, like so many women directors, found it difficult to get projects off the ground quickly. In the 15 years after her 1984 debut “Pianoforte” she only made three more films. In the new millennium, however, her career has heated up.

Among the documentaries and features she’s completed since, two dramas are being shown in addition to “Our Country” as part of her NICE tribute. 2001’s “My Father’s Words” is a reportedly fine modern-day version of Italo Svevo’s “Confessions of Zeno,” one of the greatest 20th-century Italian novels. 2004’s “I Like to Work (Mobbing)” is a sharp, disturbing sketch of a dedicated office worker (Nicoletta Braschi, who seldom gets such meaty acting opportunities as husband Roberto Begnini’s co-star) targeted for harassment and humiliation once her company is bought by a multinational corporation.

Apart from new shorts accompanying nearly every feature, the remainder of NICE ’07 consists of seven movies by “emerging directors,” all competing for the City of Florence Award decided by audience ballot tally.

While I’ve seen just four out of the seven in advance, I know where my vote’s going: To Alessandro Angelini’s “Salt Air,” an uneven but powerful drama. Roman prison parole counselor Fabio (Giorgio Pasotti) has a chip on his shoulder. It turns into a boulder once he realizes the aged con (Giorgio Colangeli) just added to his caseload is in fact his own criminal father, who’d severed ties with wife and children years before. Should Fabio reveal himself? Which emotion is stronger: Wanting to rehabilitate/reclaim the father he never really had, or wreak vengeance on him for the lasting scars he’d left on the family? “Salt Air” missteps occasionally, but at its best it’s often wrenchingly poignant. Other films previewed in the Competition section were comparatively lightweight, slick and enjoyable. Massimo Cappelli’s “Any Reason Not to Marry?” (a pretty awkward “translation” of the original “Il giorno + bello”) is an antic sex/relationship comedy about wedding-bell anxiety. Leo (Fabio Troiano) and Nina (Violante Placido) are perfectly happy living together. But when Leo impulsively proposes, it all starts going to hell — the bad marital examples of their own parents and various friends suddenly loom large; plans for a small, nontraditional ceremony turn expensively elephantine; facing “ball & chain” terrors, Leo now sees every other woman as a potentially missed sexual opportunity. This is familiar terrain, but it’s turned in a lively and stylish manner.

Sandro Baldini’s “Italian Dream” is a darker farce whose put-upon hero Antonio is a middle-aged hotel clerk and loser racetrack bettor who dreams of opening a restaurant in London that would lift his long-suffering wife and two children above constant financial discomfort. When his luck abruptly turns good, it emerges there’s a Faustian price tag attached — but is Antonio really being manipulated by forces supernatural? Writer-director Baldoni provides plenty of ironic twists, even if the final result seems more glibly mean-spirited than inspired.

Still sexy at a youthful age 51, longtime Italian star Laura Morante is the raison d’etre for Claudio Antonini’s “The Ball” (aka “Liscio”), even though its primary focus is on her widowed club singer’s precocious young son. He decides the best way to steady romantically restless ma’s life — and his own — is to find her a permanent, stabilizing boyfriend. If you’re a Morante fan, this very slight exercise — which allows her several opportunities to sing — will pay dividends in stellar charm.

Other NICE features this year are “Me, the Other,” Mohsen Melitti’s drama about two ethnically disparate young fishermen who find themselves in a tense standoff at sea; Eugenio Cappuccio’s well-reviewed “One Out of Two,” tracing a crass Genoa lawyer’s spiritual rebirth; and Marco Puccioni’s “Shelter,” in which a lesbian couple’s complacency is disturbed by the Tunisian boy who’d stowed away in their car during a recent vacation.

topics: film festivals, italian cinema, women filmmakers

11.08.2007