Aquilant Reviews

In the Mood for Love (2000)

Eco riflesso di una silente rapsodia di anime toccate dal gelo della passione.

[9/10 · 6 February 2010]

Maggie Cheung, dalla passeggiata fluida e dal corpo di gazzella (definizione presa in prestito da Piera Detassis), inquadrata da tergo mentre percorre ardite prospettive di corridoi deserti, rappresenta il cuore pulsante e l'anima del film in questione, brusca sterzata del regista, specie dopo gli affreschi impressionisti a tinte forti di "Hong Kong Express" ed "Angeli perduti", in direzione di un'apologia del sentimento raccontata in tutta la sua incompiutezza.

Wong Kar-Wai registra accuratamente ogni movenza di visi carezzati da rosse tonalità avvolgenti di colore, che s'incontrano per un attimo al suono di una musica struggente, sottolineando il tutto con un placido semi immobilismo partorito da un ralenti dalle armoniche movenze felpate capace di conferire alla vicenda una propria vita interiore, eterea, impercettibile, aleatoria. Infarcisce la pellicola di ellissi temporali dalla funzione specifica di invisibile punteggiatura, avvolgendo i suoi personaggi in tonalità rosso passione che vanno ad impregnare della loro essenza l'ambiente circostante creando un'ardita tavolozza di colorazioni estreme, pronte a debordare alla minima occasione, ma debitamente tenute a bada grazie a suadenti movenze della macchina da presa che accarezza ed avvolge ogni minimo dettaglio nella sua completezza. Enfatizza inesorabilmente le sensazioni fugaci di due esistenze prese nella morsa della malinconia, costringendole a mescolare le loro assorte solitudini in virtù di impalpabili aneliti sotterranei mutuati dalle corde del sentimento. Le incalza da vicino con fare circospetto, lambendo con sinuose movenze della macchina da presa la realtà dei loro più reconditi sentimenti, ponendo in gioco una ben delineata caratterizzazione di stati d'animo tramite carezzanti campi e controcampi, inframmezzati da brevi e repentine carrellate laterali tese a spiazzare lo spettatore e creando insperati effetti di simultaneità. Ci accompagna, mano nella mano, ad assaporare le medesime sensazioni amorose dei protagonisti custodite nel forziere dell'anima, la cui sostanza è destinata a svanire sotto la scorza dell'apparenza ma solo temporaneamente, per poi rifiorire ad ogni nuovo incontro, per l'ennesima volta scivolando via sulla pelle con la stessa penetrante ripetitività di una pioggia che batte insistente sul selciato. Sempre attento ai minimi dettagli, al gioco delle mani che sfiorano e si toccano per un attimo, scosse da invisibili fremiti che si stabilizzano nei centri nervosi creando vuoti interiori in attesa di essere colmati. Sempre pronto a frugare nei margini dell'inquadratura, giocando sulla sottrazione di immagini e sensazioni, incalzando anche da tergo la realtà della coppia fatta essenzialmente di verità non rivelate, di giochi di sguardi ed espressioni, più che di parole, lasciando perfino a fugaci volute di fumo che si librano nell'aria il compito di assecondare un canovaccio dettato dall'ambiguità dei sensi irrealizzati, dalla cristallizzazione di passioni portate timidamente allo scoperto.

E mentre la materia si contorce in silenzio, l'inerte metamorfosi di un sentimento irrealizzato, puro distillato di solitudine riflessa che si nutre della sua stessa interiorità, indirizza il nostro sguardo in direzione di mute entità in penombra, perfetta costruzione di un impero dei sensi senza sensi, col solo rimpianto confessato in silenzio ad una fessura di un'antica rovina cambogiana. Eco riflesso di una silente rapsodia di anime toccate dal gelo della passione, poste in sospensione animata presa a nolo perpetuo.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Opera che scorre sul filo della memoria, intesa come mancata riappropriazione di un'ipotetica identità.

[9/10 · 3 February 2010]

Decorazioni barocche, sale deserte, gallerie private della luce del giorno, astratti dedali labirintici, disumani corridoi trasversali a perdita d'occhio, statue dagli atteggiamenti maestosi ed immoti. Un grande salone colmo di ombre esangui dalla consistenza spettrale ma che all'improvviso, come tanti burattini senza fili mossi da un'entità misteriosa, si rivelano per quello che sono: presenze che sembrano assumere un decisivo spessore nell'interazione con le rispettive mani intente ad applaudire entità fantasmatiche poste su un ipotetico palcoscenico. Svincolata dal peso di una consequenzialità temporale la dimensione spaziale si ammanta di silenzio. E si fa strada la visione di corpi immersi in profonde poltrone tra conversazioni a vuoto e frasi a mezz'aria che si interrompono per qualche istante per poi riprendere le fila di un discorso inframmezzato da una (iper)codificata leggerezza dell'essere. Un'unica ripetitiva sintesi di movimento sembra concretizzarsi nel logaritmico duello con l'Antagonista sempre trionfante tra voci discordi che inneggiano a giochi assurdi, a trucchi nascosti, a fiammiferi da togliere in numero dispari.

Film decisamente algido "l'anno scorso a Marienbad" (o a Friedricksbaden, chissà......), dalle atmosfere fascinose rese attraverso il filtro d'una poesia assurta a linguaggio universale. Prezioso reperto cinematografico dalle distanze temporali azzerate in una suggestiva alternanza del presente con un passato forse immaginario, concretizzato in un geometrico giardino dei sogni irrealizzati irto di forme geometriche e sormontato da una balaustrata di pietra con statue che sembrano più reali degli esseri in carne ed ossa dal tempo trascorso a contendersi frammenti di ricordi risalenti all'anno precedente o a secoli addietro. Film che sa di fantastico "l'anno scorso a Marienbad", decisamente unico ed irripetibile nel suo genere. Un tuffo in un'atmosfera immobile sospesa tra realtà e finzione in cui ogni parola, ogni immagine va filtrata in trasparenza, più simile ad una dia-proiezione senza dissolvenza che ad un vero e proprio film, con una serie di fotogrammi assimilabili a veri e propri scatti fotografici singoli, di una bellezza impalpabile, così fuori dal mondo, così immersa in un contesto irreale destinato a trascendere qualsiasi tentativo di decifrazione effettuata in modo razionale, con quella sua (dis)armonia narrativa che sembra trarre dall'esasperata ripetitività una linfa sempre nuova.

Opera che scorre sul filo della memoria, intesa come mancata riappropriazione di un'ipotetica identità. Messa in scena di un passato la cui materialità incalza implacabilmente con mille dettagli lo straniamento di colei che sa di non poter ricordare o che forse costituisce solamente la replica di un qualcosa che non esiste più o che non é mai esistito perché generato dalla sola forza di un ricordo alimentato dall' immaginazione. Rievocazione di un incontro lontano inteso come un frammento della propria storia individuale. Film dal passato che si confonde con un presente dalla consistenza incerta al limite dell'irrealtà, mediato da un flusso di memoria che sembra trarre la sua forza ed il suo alimento proprio da quelle sale deserte, da quei corridoi vuoti a perdita d'occhio, da quelle statue dai gesti immobili, da quella solitudine che genera fantasmi rendendoli apparentemente vivi e palpabili nel regno del non luogo e della non esistenza.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Una duplice esistenza guidata per mano da una sottile vena di malinconia.

[8/10 · 2 February 2010]

Attraverso ipnotiche atmosfere sospese a mezz'aria, rese con un calligrafismo che evita costantemente la strada maestra di un facile e scontato schema narrativo lineare, l'autrice opera in favore di un modo di raccontare restituito tramite aggregazioni d'immagini tese a creare consonanti gradazioni di disincantato minimalismo. La macchina da presa, pilotata con fare apparentemente pigro e disinteressato, si sofferma con estrema discrezione e reiterato pudore a frugare nei momenti d'intimità dei due protagonisti, in una devota e trattenuta commozione, quasi a voler renderci partecipi di due solitudini che procedono per binari paralleli e come per magia finiscono per sfiorarsi, contro ogni regola e fondamento di geometria elementare. Quasi ad estrapolare dalla banalità del gesto quotidiano la chiave di volta d'una duplice esistenza guidata per mano da una sottile vena di malinconia che aleggia ineluttabilmente nell'elettrico blu intenso d'una metropoli catalizzante.

Ed ecco l'adombrata parvenza di spleen esistenziale assumere palpabilità, spessore materico di fisica corporeità, concretizzandosi in tautologiche ripetitività di gesti e parole apparentemente banali che scavano solchi di nostalgia fluttuante destinata a condensarsi in larghi strati ed a rimaterializzarsi nel rigirarsi e girarsi in letti sfatti pregni d'insonnia (emblematica a tale proposito l'immagine d'apertura ispirata dal pittore John Kacere) ed in un'estemporanea contemplazione di vita locale abitudinaria intrisa nell'assorto e rilucente stupore di occhi occidentali in lotta perenne col fuoco fatuo dell'indifferenza.

Il film è un continuo aprirsi e chiudersi di simboliche porte in un tentativo di comunicazione fra due mondi antitetici effettuato per vie traverse e pervenuto a parziale realizzazione tra vaghe arie di sufficienza da una parte ed eccessivi atteggiamenti di condiscendenza dall'altra, grazie alla forza aggregante della musica, in ambienti permeati da osmotiche permissività di carezzanti tonalità bluastre in perfetta sintonia con l'occhiegghiante nitore notturno d'una metropoli avvezza ad ingolfare ogni parvenza di malinconia in provvidenziali gorghi di consonante musicalità sotterranea. Nasce in tal modo una multiforme varietà di gesti, sguardi, atteggiamenti minimali percepiti dall'inconscio che vanno a stemperarsi in un evanescente fascino eversivo parzialmente perduto nella translitterazione in parole, formando un racconto compiuto sul simbiotico desiderio di spezzare il muro di un estemporaneo estraniamento esistenziale, tra toni smorzati di sommessa commedia malinconicheggiante che si alternano con tocchi sporadici di silente drammaticità resa in punta di macchina da presa. E se, come afferma la regista, "Shooting on the streets of Tokyo was kind of crazy. It was fun. We would have a really small crew, just me, a photographer and Scarlett wandering around", allora è evidente che anche nell'elefantiaco cinema Americano afflitto di manie di grandezza qualcosa sta cominciando a cambiare. In meglio.

Paris, Texas (1984)

Parole come lame protese a fendere il buio della notte dei sensi.

[10/10 · 29 January 2010]

Sottolineata dalla struggente chitarra di Ray Cooder, la visione degli stupendi paesaggi del deserto texano fa da cornice alla figura stralunata dell'individuo dallo sguardo completamente assente, sbucato letteralmente dal nulla, solo, spaurito, assetato, senza una direzione precisa, che sembra aver perso il controllo della realtà. "PARIS, TEXAS" è la prima parola pronunciata da Travis dopo il suo ritrovamento, un puntino nascosto su una grande mappa, un paradosso che sembra racchiudere una vita intera. Assistiamo qui ad un riavvicinamento tra l'essere umano ed il reale, ad un parziale recupero d'identità tramite il contatto con la vita e la comunicazione con l'esterno, totalmente smarrita in "Alice nelle città", perseguita con costanza attraverso una serie di stereotipi della comunicazione: walkie-takie, registratore, telefono, interfono, in un film cosparso di segni esteriori tipici di una società dei consumi in evoluzione: treni che attraversano di corsa la linea dell'orizzonte, cartelloni pubblicitari appesi alle impalcature, scritte propagandistiche, automobili d'ogni tipo che solcano le autostrade.

"Paris, Texas" è un'opera molto più compatta delle precedenti, dal parto assai gravoso ma ormai entrata nella leggenda del cinema, girata nell'esatto ordine cronologico di svolgimento, con personaggi e situazioni costruiti strada facendo e con le meravigliose sequenze dell'incontro fra Travis e Jane che le conferiscono un tocco di struggente bellezza, sceneggiate all'ultimo momento dal geniale scrittore Sam Shepard. Per la prima volta Wenders scopre il gusto della narrazione, non accontentandosi di imbastire storie e situazioni improvvisate strada facendo come pretesto per semplici caratterizzazioni di personaggi ma dando vita ad un film che segue un filo ben preciso ed una normale successione di avvenimenti, finalmente basato su una trama omogenea.

Fa capolino qui la centralità del personaggio dell'eroe con tutti gli obblighi derivanti da un intreccio tradizionale e da schemi narrativi più legati alla tradizione, pur nel costante obiettivo di una restituzione oggettiva della realtà. E viene introdotto nel contempo anche il primo vero e proprio personaggio femminile protagonista (a parte la piccola Alice nelle città, naturalmente): la tormentata Jane interpretata da una Nastassja Kinski da urlo, dotata della notevole capacità di bucare lo schermo, struggente e patetica figura di indescrivibile bellezza, vittima di un rapporto pieno di lacerazioni e conflittualità, predestinata ad irrompere con prepotenza nella vicenda con l'apporto del suo notevole contributo drammatico. La figura di Jane che si avvicina allo specchio pronunciando un nome liberatorio è da considerare come il simbolo di un bene prezioso calpestato e vilipeso, eterna giovinezza dell'anima lasciata fuggire via tra le fiamme del tempo. Jane, il volto sovrapposto a quello di Travis in un ideale riavvicinamento liberatorio, fantasma di una realtà dalle passate lacerazioni profonde che in quell'angusto stanzino è costretta sua malgrado ad un impietoso confronto di anime perse. Jane, dalla giovinezza sciupata suo malgrado in una serie di conflittualità permanenti, perla inestimabile buttata in pasto ai porci in un recente passato impossibile da risanare, cosparso di nevrosi, di immotivate gelosie, di febbre di possesso senza limiti, di devianti passioni a senso unico, di prevaricazioni, destinata a varcare la soglia di una stanzetta all'Hotel Meridian in perfetta solitudine, in un finale comunque aperto a possibili corsi e ricorsi storici.

Affiorano in "Paris Texas" parole come lame protese a fendere il buio della notte dei sensi e suggere il sangue di un'innocente vittima predestinata al martirio, frammiste a vampate di fuoco nell'anima scossa da gemiti animali di degradante passione che la disarticolante forza del pensiero non giova a reprimere. Crepitano fiamme interiori spente ad intervalli da un vento di morte che soffia nel torrido deserto della ragione perduta tra incontri e scontri di coscienze piagate dal soffio esistenziale della vita che scorre incerta come su lama di rasoio spuntato dal peso degli anni. Incalzano gorghi di tempestoso maelstrom speculare all'apparire di un passato corroso dal fuoco di una notte di follia. E si fa largo un rendez-vous di anime vaganti nel limbo lattiginoso dell'esistenza piegata alla forza d'una ragione compressa in angusti spazi comunicanti di memoria. E restano alla fine soltanto lacrime come rade gocce di pioggia opacizzante racchiuse in uno spazio dal claustrofobico respiro.

Ghost World (2001)

The difficulty of dealing with a world that has fallen out of tune.

[7/10 · 29 January 2010]

In a small patch of America where the people are closed into their mental and material sluggishness and where some troubled adolescents are unwilling to accept their imaginary imprisonment a shadow of uneasiness finds its way among patches of thick darkness where all kinds of interpersonal relationships are inhibited. Two young girls put aside every improper form of rebellion and trigger a mechanism based on the creative power of the gaze intended as usual means of observation, taking advantage of the slightest occasions to climb the fences of intolerance and anonymity to confirm their unacknowledged existence.

But the dull Ghost World which has become a symbol of the decadence of American culture and more generally of the entire Western civilization hasn't got the capacity to change the strength of the human consciences. So, it goes on prospering in his stagnant anonymity amid the general indifference while the visionary minds of some nostalgic people are completely marginalized by a world that confuses Fellini's "Eight and a half " with Lyne's "Nine and a half weeks". and the voices of old 78 speed records seem to echo the ghosts of an era and The movie is about the difficulty of dealing with a world that has really fallen out of tune; the dialogues have the flavor of dialogue balloons expressed in a direct and explicit language even if not foul-mouthed, the language of the adolescence who is looking for its individual values, in close contact with an excerpt of humanity anesthetized by strong doses of daily pettiness and unable to seize the slightest positive change but following stubbornly a customary provincial ritual properly stored into the code of a sort of stale mental microchip.

"Ghost world" is a bitter comedy that makes us think, completely stripped from frills and various paraphernalia, bluntly addressed to the heart of a problem far from insoluble because in the end even a long wait for a deleted bus route deleted can lead to positive consequences. Adapted from a underground comic book by Daniel Clowes, the film keeps the blaze of colors comics accentuated by the brilliance of the photography, a legacy which carries as consequence a series of short sequences throughout the whole narrative. Be as it may Ghost World proves once again that comics shouldn't be considered in any way a replacement for artistic discipline subordinate to other higher forms of expression of human creativity because they have a particular autonomous capacity of production of reality thank to their original and exclusive language. And this time the movie gives us the opportunity to take two birds with one stone: precisely the American Beauty Thora Birch and the glamorous Scarlett Johansson, one of my favorite actresses. And the nearly two hours in length of the film aren't certainly to be considered "lost in translation!"

Wings of Desire (1987)

Moderna epopea di un popolo con i suoi ricordi, le sue passioni, le sue tensioni inesplose, i suoi itinerari esistenziali.

[10/10 · 26 January 2010]

"Quando è cominciato il tempo e dove finisce lo spazio? La vita sotto il sole non è forse un sogno?" Sono le domande che Wenders pone in bocca a Marion, l'avvenente protagonista femminile di questa algida panoramica sul mondo e sugli individui derubati della loro interiorità da esseri primordiali che vagano alla ricerca delle loro emozioni, dei loro più remoti pensieri, dei loro desideri repressi.

Rendersi pienamente partecipe dei segreti dell'individuo, dei suoi turbamenti, dei suoi dolori, è questo il desiderio recondito di onnipotenza che Wenders sviluppa in una monumentale opera tramite una serie di ingegnose sequenze tese a focalizzare la realtà fenomenica di un'intera fetta di umanità messa a nudo e violentata a sua insaputa da occulte presenze a sembianza di angeli che racchiudono al loro interno i germi latenti di un logorio sistematico operato nel corso dei secoli sulla propria volontà di percezione passiva e sulla capacità di interazione col mondo sottostante. Il senso di impotenza è tanto più accentuato quanto più grande è l'intensità del conflitto esistenziale percepito tramite lo sguardo dall'alto da parte dell'occhio che spazia su una moltitudine di puntini in movimento per captare voci e visioni di gente che sta per "andarsene via come una mammola", per rubare estremi ricordi dal sapore di "Croce del Sud", di "Oriente lontano", di "Grande Nord", di "Ovest selvaggio", di "Delta del Mississipi".

L'angelo è incapace di accogliere l'umanità sotto le sue ali protettrici, e lo dimostra agitandole in segno di impotenza nei voli al di sopra della città. Il suo sguardo partecipe coincide con quello della macchina da presa tramite un generoso utilizzo delle inquadrature in "soggettiva". E l'irreparabile incapacità di compenetrazione oggettiva che nelle prime opere di Wenders (vedi nella fattispecie "Alice nelle città") si manifestava tramite un rigetto della parola scritta seguito da vani tentativi di documentazione della realtà tramite pellicola sensibile, nel caso presente viene affrontata tramite un'elevazione verso l'alto realizzata in forma trascendente. Quasi una sorta di creazionismo primigenio cui fa difetto una totale assenza del senso del sacro ma che si risolve in una serie di figure di impassibili guardiani del nulla che dopo aver attraversato l'intero evoluzionismo con l'impotenza dello sguardo si volgono con invidia alle capacità tattili degli esseri umani, alla loro attitudine ad interagire con la realtà, alla loro facoltà di amare ed essere amati. In tal modo il delirio di vana onnipotenza, inteso come una sorta di deificazione in grado di restituire all'essere pensante quella visione oggettiva della realtà invano cercata per altre strade, è destinato ad infrangersi comunque, perché il prezzo da pagare è troppo elevato ed il relativo meccanismo cognitivo, seppure realizzato allo stato ipotetico tramite strade non accessibili normalmente, lascia emergere l'incapacità di una prerogativa che attribuisce all'uomo il modellamento del reale a guisa di un novello creatore.

Ancora una volta quindi il fallimento è alle porte, pur se la soluzione metafisica permette all'umano di avanzare di qualche passo sulla sua strada salvo poi farlo tornare al punto di partenza nella consapevolezza che lo sguardo dall'esterno comporta l'incapacità di compenetrare la forma delle cose, e fargli testualmente dichiarare che "È MAGNIFICO VIVERE DI SOLO SPIRITO E TESTIMONIARE ALLA GENTE CIÒ CHE È SPIRITUALE MA A VOLTE L'ETERNITÀ PUÒ PESARE. SONO STANCO DI FARE LE COSE PER FINTA MA SAREBBE GIÀ QUALCOSA TORNARE A CASA DOPO UN LUNGO GIORNO ED ENTUSIASMARSI PER QUALCOSA, POTER FUMARE, BERE UN CAFFÈ, SENTIRE IL MOVIMENTO DELLE PROPRIE OSSA". - Questa metafora in immagini svolta con un uso frequente di piani sequenza è concepita come un atto d'amore da parte del regista nei confronti della sua città cui rende un devoto omaggio tramite stupende inquadrature aeree dall'alto, immortalando le strade, i palazzi, i ponti, i chioschi, gli appartamenti di periferia, la metropolitana con la splendida fotografia di Henn Alekan, un bianconero dai toni seppiati che restituiscono alla perfezione la visione degli angeli impossibilitati a percepire visivamente i colori della realtà e rassegnati ad una straniante visione monocromatica. L'atmosfera decadente è avvalorata dagli sferzanti immalinconimenti musicali al limite del disfattismo di Nick Cave, l'indimenticato interprete di "Where wild roses go", qui orfano della sua compagna di videoclip Kylie Minogue. Echi di scene di circo cadenzate con una gioia quasi infantile richiamano alla mente nostalgiche reminiscenze felliniane. Frammenti di ricordi perduti vagano nell'aria, rievocati dal cantore della memoria storica della città, di quella Postdammerplatz una volta piena di vita ma ormai smarrita insieme al suo caffè Josti ed ai suoi magazzini Werthein.

"Il cielo sopra Berlino" è una struggente reverie colma di visionarietà fantastica condotta con la commozione di chi dopo tanto tempo torna a ripercorrere le strade dell'infanzia per ritrovare le sue radici ormai smarrite nella disgregazione del popolo tedesco in tanti piccoli stati, nella sua totale capitolazione di fronte al colonialismo culturale americano. Storia che va quindi anche percepita come una moderna epopea di un popolo con i suoi ricordi, le sue passioni, le sue tensioni inesplose, i suoi itinerari esistenziali, svolta in quel monocromatismo inteso come rappresentazione di una realtà decolorata ed apparentemente immersa in una piega temporale al di fuori del normale CORSO DEL TEMPO.

Autumn Tale (1998)

Storia di apparente banalità quotidiana intessuta di una filosofia che potrebbe essere definire "spicciola"...

[10/10 · 26 January 2010]

A conclusione dei suoi "Racconti delle quattro stagioni" e senza deviare dai sentieri che è solito percorrere abitualmente, Rohmer ci fa dono di questo gioiellino di pregio pieno di tocchi d'ironia che scorre con estrema fluidità per quasi due ore filate.

Storia di apparente banalità quotidiana intessuta di una filosofia che potrebbe essere definire "spicciola" se non fosse per il rischio di ledere con questo aggettivo la personalità di un regista la cui vena creativa non accenna minimamente ad esaurirsi dopo oltre quarant'anni di percorsi narrativi tutti affrontati con mano leggera. Principale caratteristica del cinema di Rohmer è un marcato carattere di teatralità che lascia poco spazio ai movimenti di macchina, all'uso del dolly, a frequenti piani sequenza.

L'autore preferisce affidarsi alla semplicità ed alla trasparenza dei dialoghi che scorrono sullo schermo con una disarmante fluidità e vanno ad irrorare il raffinato equilibrio compositivo della materia narrata con tocchi di carezzevole ed armonioso lirismo. Sicuramente questo "Racconto d'autunno" non smentisce la fama del suo autore nel presentarci una serie di soggetti pronti a confrontarsi in una moderna commedia degli equivoci condita con i più disparati ingredienti e non immune da una certa dose di ironia. Antieroi del mondo contemporaneo propensi a calarsi quasi con nonchalance in un divertente gioco delle parti, mettendo generosamente in piazza i loro tic, le loro manie, le loro piccole perversioni in un continuo rimescolamento di carte, destreggiandosi alla meno peggio in un disarmonico ordine delle cose che attende con malcelata impazienza di essere posto nuovamente nel suo giusto equilibrio. Situazioni apparentemente fotoromanzate ma in effetti intrise di pungenti riflessioni sulla labilità dei sentimenti e sull'instabilità di esistenze sommerse in una dorata solitudine. Rapporti di coppia predestinati fin dal loro nascere a navigare nel mare dell'indifferenza. Problemi sentimentali dell'età matura vissuti con animo d'adolescente. Vibrazioni di anime inquiete che non si rassegnano ai cambiamenti dell'età. Vincoli di ammiccanti solidarietà proprie dell'universo femminile con l'occhio benigno della natura sempre tesa a vegliare sul loro risoluto cammino.

E tra incontri e scontri vari le figure di Magali, Isabelle, Rosine, Etienne e Gerald, intente a dare vita a questo bozzettistico affresco di vita immerso in caldi colori autunnali, ci rendono partecipi delle loro schermaglie amorose in assenza di ombre e di luci, senza voler dare mai l'impressione di prevaricarsi a vicenda.

Regular Lovers (2005)

Let's breathe the forgotten atmosphere of the Nouvelle Vague!

[8/10 · 14 September 2005]

Philippe Garrel makes us breathe the forgotten atmosphere of the Nouvelle Vague, almost lost among the vestiges of its ancient splendor but ready to rise again from its ashes if recalled from the past. They who are a little acquainted with the director's subjects, on the other hand, may know very well how he's obsessed by a lingering sense of loss as far as fickleness of reality is concerned. "Les amants réguliers", therefore, show us the parallel stories of an "amour fou" and of a tempted revolution gone to ruin under the direction of young French students.

The first part of the story is about the dramatic events of May '68 in France evoked in a series of astonishing plan-sequences, a sort of cinema verité style, that place the student insurrection in anything but an enviable light against a pitch-black background.

There's much that can be said about the peculiarities of black-and-white photography used to describe the battle between students and police, where the high contrasts confer an unrealistic atmosphere to the sequences and darkness closes in upon the excited bodies wrapping them in mystery. The images, completely deprived of words, show the real consistence of the myth, made of crude violence, more and more emphasized by the exasperated reality of the movie shootings. The individual doesn't count anything at all here: he tends to disappear in the mass. What really matters in these fight scenes are the significance of the mass-suggestion, the blind fury of the juvenile assault, sinister eulogies of the power of the mob, even if conceived like separate entities apart from any kind of emotion, with the cold and distant look of an entomologist intent to catalog his insect collection.

The second part of the story is described in a quieter and most intimate way. Stands out on the horizon the distressing portrait of a self-centered generation in search of its lost time, completely disenchanted about the individual values of men, inclined to rotate on its own axis between opium fumes and making a funeral oration in the praise of its recent defeat.

"Les amants réguliers" seems to evoke from time to time the shadow of the great Robert Bresson, revised and corrected by Garrel's particular sensibility without drifting away from the main argument, trying to expand overall perspectives on the subject of human disillusions that though painful may bring us to the truth. In my opinion, trying to penetrate deeply into the substrate of the story, if a man lets himself go and play things by ear, he probably will find that he can bring out the dark side of his self with dire and irretrievable consequences.

The 400 Blows (1959)

Portrait of a restless young man yearning for freedom

[9/10 · 1 September 2005]

This is the fist chapter of the saga of Antoine Doinel, performed in a masterly manner during a long period of his life (twenty years) by the surprising Jean-Pierre Léaud, followed step by step by the pygmalion Truffaut during the whole course of his full physical maturity, beginning from the actor's early years.

The present movie deals with the topic of unquiet and misunderstood adolescence, clearly inspired by Edmund' character, the young boy who lives in the destructed Germany doing all kinds of work in Rossellini's "Germania anno zero". Antoine and Edmund are two young human beings at the mercy of the waves, without any help or control, living on the fringe of society, unable to cope with the hypocrisy of grown-up people that guess they are no good for anything. But differently from Rossellini's character, Antoine is endowed with more resolution than him. Furthermore, the will to succeed will help him a great deal in his life, especially to come unsmirched from the manifold difficulties of existence, because he's a stubborn boy who prefers the real thing to the phony stuff and doesn't want to give grown-up people the satisfaction of knowing that their choices have worked on him.

With the same incomparable style you expect by an author that has made him beloved by many cinephiles far and wide, Truffaut describes the portrait of a restless young man yearning for freedom, in open rebellion with his familiar environment and with the whole adult world. Scenes from an unhappy existence, outlined in the script with sometimes disenchanted frankness, clearly following the inspiration of autobiographically conceived ideas, while the repeated use of long focal length lens during movie shooting conveys an anonymous sense of uneasiness.

The rebellious character Antoine Doinel, unamenable to discipline, is included in a metropolitan context described in a very impersonal way, plunged in melancholy and echoing a meaningless platitude, according to a disenchanting, strictly objective conception of the reality. Truffaut doesn't "ask" us to identify with his subject, no wonder his psychological motivations point out to us in a disturbing way the complete downfall of individual certainties as far as the difficult route to adulthood is concerned. The purpose of this generational conflict created by him is to prove that boys aren't guiltier than adults; both of them in his opinion are victims of a society whose uneasy feelings spread over their lives with undesired consequences.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Tearing and cathartic report about every distortions in faith.

[10/10 · 25 August 2005]

The Tragedy is being consummated. The Passion is reaching its apex. "You are burning a Saint!", this is the scream of anguish of the people, witness of this poignant event, very deeply moved by the excruciating agony of Joan of Arc, flame beyond the flame. Very short hair, fine features in spite of her social condition of uncultured peasant, deep and large eyes burning of the same unquenchable fire bound to put an end to her life: this is our heroine, whose beauty is emphasized at once by her great faith in the infinite mercy of God.

She never staggers under the heavy burden of her charge in the presence of her inquisitors, unreal and monstrous entities whose hardheartedness shows up on their grotesque features and on their unnatural animal-like attitude, judging by their perverse faces distorted by extremely short focal length lenses. They look like personified devilish entities engaged in a cat-and-mouse game, their ugliness accentuated by a series of uncommon close-ups contrasting with Joan's wonderful face that shows the extreme dramaticity of her situation instead, compelled to endure her pain with great courage and to bear the heavy weight of her cross with resignation, without losing her steady disposition of soul, wanting to go through with her rigidity of principles at the cost of her life.

Satanic grimaces, devilish sneers, derisive laughters and spittle emphasize the ineluctable course of this absurd justice system while the vision of her holocaust hovers above the head of the sacrifical victim, so fragile, so vulnerable when fighting in defense of her behavior, so unheard when holding her own opinion, so unprotected when pleading her cause. She objects strenuously to everything they say because faith leads people to do things they never would have imagined themselves capable of, but her passionate words flow away like feeble whispers in a windy day, while her enchanting eyes scan an invisible sky, looking for something beyond her human strength, beyond every possibilities of the common mortals, maybe a divine sign from above, even if there's no question about her unshakable devotion to God, because "God knows where He bring us", she thinks, "but we are able to know the road to Him only when we reach the end of it." Every sequences are included in the above described oppressive scenario whose hypnotic suggestion expressionist style reminds us of the universal sense of pain ready to penetrate deeply into the substrate of our Christian and human consciences, in the inmost recesses of the soul, sharing our hidden emotions awakened by the vision of a defenseless face appealing for mercy in vain, without never losing her dignity.

Joan, of Arc, splendidly played by Renée Falconetti in this "PASSION", might be considered the symbol of the eternal suffering of human beings, adorned with an aureole of beauty and holiness, set on a supreme pedestal, higher and higher than every other female characters of the history of cinema, namely the ideal heroin per antonomasia especially thanks to the heart-rending final purification, moving and endless journey around the deep black of human soul, around the meanders of a faith itinerary stranded for ages on the sand-banks of a devastating fanatic pragmatism. Tearing and cathartic report about every distortions in faith.

Three Colors: Blue (1993)

The peremptory withdrawal into an existence of self solitude

[10/10 · 19 August 2005]

A blurred image of a car driving along a country road first, hardly perceived by the young passer-by. And after a few seconds the CRASH, awful, appalling, ineluctable. The half-conscious eye becomes prematurely aware of the death announcement. Almost before the woman realizes it, things have gone too far and it's impossible for her to back out from living damnation. So from an hospital bed of suffering a scream of anguish arises suddenly, seen as a peremptory withdrawal into an existence of immeasurable self solitude, as a controversial evidence of a disillusioned and insignificant future.

There it is, the cathartic route to desolation row of a woman voluntarily immersed into voids of memory and determined to erase the past from her mind, doomed to cancel the loss of her family as a free self-imposition thank to the complete repudiation of every sentiments, as if her fate weren't discouraging enough.

Julie's route is intended as a cry for freedom. As a release from musical reminiscences thrown into the dust-bin, from the possession of material things whose recollection can stop the healing of open wounds, from love involvements in the enclosed space of some anonymous, empty rooms. Julie's freedom is very heavy, it makes her perceive its oppressing presence every moments of her life, but on the other hand it helps her to empty her mind of every sad recollections of her past. But the line between pain and oblivion is very thin, and sometimes she doesn't even realize she's crossing it.

Juliette Binoche puts her heart and brain (more the last one than the first one) into acting the disconsolate widow. Her performance is personally inspired by Annie Dupré's book "The black angel", based on the death of the writer's parents in a car crash. Her character is damned to perpetual interior torment, into the BLUE, deprived of the faculty of emerging cathartically to light, necessary intermediate stage to reach a new existential balance.

And we can find the BLUE everywhere. BLUE like the reflections of the swimming pool, faithful companion in solitude, relaxing amniotic liquid whose embrace is so welcoming! BLUE like the color of her empty room, once beaming with joy. BLUE like the chandelier, brought with her as the only memory of happy days gone by. BLUE like the notes of the scale that run after each other on the musical pentagram playing a growing hymn to love. But mainly BLUE as symbol of the cold void of the soul fallen on her back, temporarily deaf to the bells of life resounding around it.

Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Portrait of a rising generation on the verge of losing its way

[8/10 · 18 August 2005]

Bobby is a guy who's been around but he doesn't know that he mightn't rush things. According to the saying "carpe diem", unable to look her father in the face, dismayed by his old man's irreversible illness, he dreams a world conceived in his own image and likeness. His indomitable iron will makes him hold his course towards a sort of anarchic disorder, inspiring him a diffuse sense of rebellion against everyone and no one in particular. He's always torn between anger at having to face the truth and a wild desire to laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

But only his way of playing Chopin to experience emotions can awaken pleasant recollections and reconcile him with his self, bringing to light a life-long tendency to introversion hidden under his skin. Not by chance the camera movement nearly completes a circle around the room during the revealing sequence of his piano solo, zooming into some meaningful pictures that disclose his absolutely normal past years, dismantling in a disturbing way his forced attitude of rebellion. "He might have been quite a good guy if only they had given him a chance", the camera seems to say.

No wonder Nicholson doesn't toil hard to display his full richness of talent, having found his most congenial role in years and being always the master of the situation like a perfect landlord, acting naturally in the same concentrated and unconstrained style. His character is histrionic, melodramatic, romantic, impudent, unbecoming, licentious depending on the circumstances, a sort of "deus ex machina" bound to cheer or disturb the people around him according to his momentary disposition of soul.

This movie can be defined in many ways. As a blend of skin-deep sensations always on the verge of irony (the duologue between Bobby asking for a sandwich and the waitress refusing flatly is very amusing). As a cynical story swerving from the straight path and resembling from time to time a drama full of lofty sentiments (see the silent duologue between father and son). Or as the somber description of a pessimistic middle-class ("soon there never will be more room for human beings", they say). But more precisely "Five easy pieces" can be defined as the portrait of a rising generation on the verge of losing its way and worried about the fact that it has been caught unawares.

Autumn in New York (2000)

A poetic movie full of lofty feelings

[8/10 · 9 June 2005]

AUTUMN IN NEW YORK is a poetic movie full of lofty feelings, especially recommended to all these lonely souls wanting to float in the sea of romantic emotions thank to its peculiar style echoing Pre-Raphaelite and Decadent poetry. Maybe, if it hadn't been for my favorite star, the beautiful WINONA RYDER, too marvelous for words, delicious weaver of celluloid dreams, completely ignored by the star- system in recent years, this melancholy movie could have passed unnoticed.

I guess it's no longer a mystery how Noni has the ability to bewitch the audience. She's more deserving and experienced than other overrated and expressionless stars accustomed to bring out second-rate movies every two months with the same vehemence of a machine-gun. This is the reason why the present work can be held in due consideration: thank to Winona Ryder's commendable performance. She can make us breathe the impalpable, bitter flavor of a delicate love story in the same way the great screen actresses of the past could do, like only a few stars today can do. On the other hand, let me try to draw a veil over her partner's overacting performance.

In my opinion the supposed inconsistency (due to many negative reviews) of this piece of work full of pathetic scenes of sentimental value, which has garnered only a lukewarm response from audiences and critics can be actually due to the obviousness of the plot, based on a romantic love story between a womanizer and an ailing girl. Even if the script could have been written in the nineteenth century by some feuilleton writer like, for instance, the prolific Italian writer Carolina Invernizio (1858-1916), author of "the Kiss of a dead woman", the movie gives off a scent of fresh modernity. It can be preferred as a relaxing alternative to some alleged masterpieces of those directors suffering by a sort of Tarantinian syndrome, like, for instance, Robert Rodriguez, author of the hyper-violent movies "From dusk till dawn" and Sin City.

Respiro (2002)

The odyssey of a rebel housewife

[9/10 · 6 June 2005]

The movie gives us a vivid and ruthless description of the odyssey of a rebel housewife, described with passionate and emotional involvement without giving vent to any sort of conceptualism. This touching story has been inspired by the legend of a mysterious woman who disappeared a long time ago in Lampedusa (an island in the sea of Sicily, the southern point of Europe.). Grazia, the catalyst character of the story, a restless married woman of unusual habits, is considered a nut, an irresponsible person who can't participate fully in the life of society, being forced into total imagination. If it hadn't been for an out-of-date husband, maybe she would have turned her beauty to better account.

Unable to stifle her feelings and to bear the heavy burden of age-old customs, she blows a fuse, ready to abandon home, land and property to flee into the unknown. As the intolerant member of an archaic fishermen community whose behavior leaves much to be desired, not tuned to her same emotional wavelength, not contaminated by the standardization of the modern society, she's quite resolved to preserve every traditional values and social structures, without leaving space for human relationships not predetermined by time-honored customs faithfully handed on from father to son. In this forgotten land where the younger brothers strive to safeguard the reputation of their mothers, the alienated Grazia, (played by a touching and wonderful Valeria Golino), generally considered to be either a very wretched woman or, even worse, a lunatic one, is eager to undertake a journey towards the complete fulfillment of her hopes, yearning for the sight of her deep blue sea, complying with her inner desire for emancipation. In her unremitting efforts to achieve ultimate freedom, the same freedom bestowed by her upon the dogs waiting to be slaughtered, she strives to get over her existential dimension of illness, feeling like a fish out of water, with fear in her eyes, eager to feel the warm embrace of the sea, restored to a sort of primitive amniotic fluid and changing her uneasy feelings into unlimited pleasure.

The movie shows us the epos of a picturesque island where even the children's games reflect the savage nature of the surrounding environment. To be considered at the same time the celebration of a land and of rough people stubbornly bound together by a close friendship without any will to open up new horizons, conforming to precise religious rules (Our Lady's statue brought down the sounding-depth), careful not to mistake the will of sound emancipation for the abolition of every moral scruples. Decided not to be corrupted by vices of more developed social strata.

Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)

Old-fashioned stereotypes of Italian people

[5/10 · 28 May 2005]

How banal are these movies about Italian people (like "Under the Tuscan sun, for instance), with their customary mandolins, limoncellos and daring "pappagallos" (namely "Italian cheap seducers") in search of beautiful American divorcées who, running at full speed for their life (?!), come across the usual goodish-looking Southern Italian stand-out with an expressionless face, what a coincidence! Oops, there he is, Raoul Bova in person, a dead ringer for Rudolph Valentino!........... From bad to worse, I would say. We'll jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

Okay,okay, let's get down to brass tacks: I'm kidding, you know, but I'm tired of looking at the whole shebang of old-fashioned stereotypes about Italian people, depicted as "caricaturable spaghetti eaters", "mandolin players", "Latin seducers" and so on, always ready to play for the hypocritical saga: "volemose bbene" (let's love each other) the leading role of easy-going merry fellows, always prone to laxism, feeling at their ease as small time seducers, giving their easy kisses as untrue love tokens to condescending tourists always on the edge of a crisis of sex abstinence, together with big hugs underlined by a light breeze near ruffling sea waves. Having had the bad luck of reading Tim Parks' "Italian Neighbours" as well, a book full of conversational commonplaces, that's what I would call "cheaply folklore" lavished by handfuls "like a spring of gushing water". Much to my regret, I must admit that the "homo italicus" is sometimes considered synonym of "tarallucci e vino" (small biscuits & wine), a misleading portrait connected with unavoidable and obsolete Neapolitan songs with mandolin accompaniment full of superficiality and carelessness.

In my opinion it's useless to examine the movie from a cultural standpoint; please, don't sell me this medley of commonplaces as "poeticity" because there's nothing artistic in it. What a pity for the beautiful and willing Diane Lane who does her best to look pleasant and to be equal to the task! Her character faces life with serenity in search of opportunities, heedless of the potential danger of love at first sight. She's looking for a safe anchorage in difficult times as if she were on the point of slipping on the banana peel of life, devoted to Marcello, her Latin male lover, a guy with a deadpan voice that puts me to sleep, not comparable to Edward 'Ed' Sumner, but more reassuring than the stalker Jack Price (the thriller addicts know the guys I'm talking about).

But to make a long story short, has anybody seen this Tuscan sun in the movie? When it's not raining and storming, it's cloudy outside, you know, but there's no reason for getting so disappointed: the solar beauty of this Italian region can be easily admired in the postcards written by Frances.

Sacred Heart (2005)

Scenes from a cathartic journey of darkness, regret and redemption

[10/10 · 21 May 2005]

The movie is about the emotional discovery of a phantasmatic SECOND HEART, hidden into the most secret recesses of our souls, strictly disregarded by the anatomy books. A SECRET HEART whose feeble beat cannot be heard in our chest but can be perceived thank to our passionate involvement, when we are about to perform the greatest acts of love in an emotional detachment from our disturbing human condition, making necessary and irreversible choices in such a way as to discard all prejudices and return good for evil. A SACRED HEART dozing inside everybody's body for a long time, being reawakened just at the right moment, in our case, thank to the great purity of soul of Benny, a pleasant pilferer, played by the young actress Camille Dugay Comencini, who discloses the doors of the soul's insides to an apparently heartless business woman. An INVISIBLE HEART, eager to inspire total confidence in ourselves, to suggest actions and attitudes at odds with the current state of business, to protect human beings against a risky dive into the dark way of easy profit at the cost of their peace of mind. Bound to remind us to turn our eyes and look at the suffering fellowmen with their hands vainly stretched out for aid, resigned to live at the edge of the road in a everlasting humiliating condition of life. By conventional standards it's really easy to close our eyes in the presence of the uncomfortable reality of people in distress and turn our backs to their disturbing presence capable to upset the stability of a world created by us to be like ourselves, always ready to breathe frantic winds of globalization that go on producing new waves of poor people all over the world.

The whole work is permeated by a sense of palpable need of sacrality, very uncomfortable on account of many destabilizing sequences where Ferzan Ozpeteck invites us to look away from the riches of the world and cast a glance beyond our limited horizons, towards new risky dimensions, to those outcasts of fortune claiming in a faint voice the right to live a decent life. The director goes over and over this subject again, defined by himself as a sort of "soul thriller". The human soul is showed in all its nuances by the character of Irene, the beautiful Barbara Bobulova (as a substitute for Valeria Golino, the best Italian actress together with Giovanna Mezzogiorno).

IRENE LOOKS LIKE AN ARABIAN PHOENIX risen from the ashes of her condition of lacking feeling woman, symbol of capitalistic exploitation, young restless soul in a vertical dive towards cathartic experiences, unceasingly followed by the camera in many stunning sequences. WOOED by the mechanic eye like a delicious lover truly deserving all possible attentions lavished on her. FONDLED and PETTED incessantly, thank to extended and inquisitive close-ups, in her pauses for reflection, in her moments of silence, in her excitements and internal tensions, with her stare of astonishment suspended in the void of an hypothetical space and her nude and defenseless face vowed to silence. Faithfully FOLLOWED in her wanderings with soft long takes in a sinuous circular movement of the camera, as a sacrificial victim at the mercy of the onlookers' eyes. CELEBRATED by an amazing soundtrack in a successful attempt at carrying into effect her way of redemption. IMMORTALIZED as a living symbol of Michelangelo's Pieta, extreme evidence of the folly of self-giving love, of the solidarity heralding her thirst for justice to the whole world, rebelling against every prevailing logic imbued with the worship of wealth. SUPPORTED by documentary evidence in her fits of giddiness thank to hyper-kinetics movements of camera in a cold, alienating swimming pool. Impiteously VIOLATED in her privacy and handed over to the media's morbid curiosity in her cathartic moments of physical and moral denouement, extreme final act of gift of herself and her belongings, with the chaste nakedness of her spotless bosom revealed and offered for all the hurried passers-by to see, as a token of her salvific spirit of sacrifice and of her sense of self-denial towards a world pervaded with deep sorrow and suffering.

Scenes from a cathartic journey of darkness, regret and redemption orchestrated by another side of Ozpetek: the director sets aside his particular concept of "family" to devote himself to a moving project, to something that strikes us with a deep-rooted feeling and infuses courage into our hearts inspiring hope in our spirits. To something new that makes up our minds to cast a new glance at the life through Irene's sea blue eyes, towards more winding directions, inviting us to cast reflections on ourselves.

My Mother's Smile (2002)

An awful third rate movie whose main purpose is to ridicule the acts of canonization

[1/10 · 15 May 2005]

"L'ora di religione" (The religion class) is an awful third rate movie whose main purpose is to ridicule the acts of canonization in an apodictic tone, even with a blasphemous curse uttered in the name of the art of cinema. Aiming at showing the evidence of huge turnovers hidden behind the canonization projects with the connivance of Vatican, the movie supports the thesis of religious conversions due to mere spirit of opportunism to open new prospects of eternal life insurance. In other words, we are in the presence of a religious choice made on grounds of expediency and not intended as a profession of faith renewed day by day without listening to bewitching sirens echoing secular songs of existential desolation.

This movie desecrates and tramples upon all the true and good ideals of life professed by the Catholic Church, laying the blame on the religion, accusing it to disturb the peace of the families, to upset the conscience of children, as if the religion class were responsible of a series of existential damages in our time. As if one could find behind the facade of the Catholicism a good deal of hidden hypocrisy. And if Ettore, Ernesto's son, in his childish obsession manages to talk directly with GOD against his own will, there he his, the "deus ex machina", his omniscient father in his capacity as a fictitious but miraculous therapist, ready to obviate the drawback with the clear and strict enunciation of a suggestive cause-effect relation about the desire for eternal life: believing in SCIENCE is tantamount to believing in IMMORTALITY (thank to the power of face lifting!), ignoring that only a wholesome family education in conformity with the spirit of Catholicism can constitute the basis of an adequate comprehension of the religious doctrine. On the other hand, how can a child not to take too literally the (unhealthy?!) catechism lessons from a necessarily ugly and frigid religion teacher (because a religion teacher can't be a nice woman, in accordance with the script) if his parents are unable to give him a right support to make him understand that six billion human beings can be easily controlled by GOD thank to His almightiness? It's obvious that Ernesto, the father, anxious to formulate hypothesis and thesis to reach the truth one way only, namely in accordance with his personal idea of basic beliefs of atheism, can't even dream of pondering about his inability to enable his son to understand this simple truth. He never looks at himself, examining his own conscience to look into the matter of his own infallibility. He hasn't any doubts about the INADEQUACY of the religion teacher and about the ADEQUACY of his twopenny halfpenny dialectics because what really matters, according to the script, is to strike blindly at everything concerning the religious element, especially at the issue of sainthood, without any pause for breath, without any alternative voice, profiting by every occasion to deny the existence of life after death.

It's really remarkable how the truth can be misrepresented here. There isn't any will to direct the attention to those mischievous aspects of the modern society that have smoothed the way for cynical and opportunist people ready to profit from every occasion to reach their own purposes, taking advantage of the good faith of the Ecclesiastic Authority (an hypothesis never contemplated in the movie) to acquire dignity, prestige and perpetuate privilege positions, especially through the safest way, that is to say the sanctification of a frail, poor wretch with the only fault of having given birth to five heartless sons. On the other hand, "the eternity is a sure investment, an absolute value that outlives every changes for the worse, like the banks" as states cynically Filippo Argenti (not that frenzied Florentine spirit among the wrathful in the river Styx that turned on himself his own biting teeth, as written in Alighieri's Divine Comedy), as if to give value to the religious conversions may suffice a simple formal act of obedience to the Church and to the Pope, described as an "absolute monarch who reigns over the consciences of all Italian people." And according to the thesis of the movie, a human being converted to Christ can enjoy his life a little more and find a lover for himself without playing the moralist and without caring about breaking up his family. A miracle of the so-called authorial cinema!!!

A Short Film About Love (1988)

A magical world made of unadorned rooms and dreary meetings

[10/10 · 13 May 2005]

The obscure object of Tomek's desire is always the same: the magical world of the attractive woman in the opposite palace, made of unadorned rooms and dreary meetings. The young busybody caught by the merciless camera in the act of scrutinizing the voluptuous, graceful shape of her scantily exposed human flesh feels a sensation of warmth in his heart, picturing to himself a dream world where the people can be embraced with the power of his piercing glance. His level of mental perception seems to grow exceedingly at the moment of penetrating the innermost recesses of Magda's intimacy, his recalcitrant flame of passion, his fickle, forbidden desire.

But Tomek is not satisfied with the sight of her bare-legged beauty (opaque and unlikely reminiscence of the evangelic Mary Magdalene), he does not want to remain a passive onlooker. Like a capricious and authoritarian "Demiurge" he devises disturbing situations by means of the phone in order to claim the exclusiveness of his prey, running the risk of being given a sound trashing. On account of his state of blind unconsciousness, he runs on burning coals, aflame with curiosity and passion, almost paying heavy tribute to arbitrary flights of fantasy.

The movie is an extended version of "Dekalog 6", (Thou shalt not commit adultery), with a different epilogue. It gives us a good reason to get to the heart of Kieslowski's art of poetry and to relive the emotions of an ambiguous and poignant story, probably the most licentious of the whole Decalogue, a ruthless description of an insatiable desire for possession, caused by a mind deviating from the straight path. A piece of work made of immoral ambiguity and irresponsible premeditation. A dangerous midsummer night's dream carried out awkwardly, fated to rush headlong into an open conflict with a pitiless reality without finding a way of escape.

Three Colors: Red (1994)

Good-bye KRZYSZTOF, we miss you so much!

[10/10 · 8 May 2005]

Are we allowed to interfere with our fellowmen's everyday's life? Is it possible to intrude upon their intimacy, to penetrate the inwardness of their thoughts violating the privacy of their own home without being blamed? The director raises some doubts about these apparently solvable questions, almost sympathetic towards judge Jean Luis' destabilizing decision of coming to terms with his own inducted self-seclusion by means of fragments of lives embezzled by him.

"Trois couleurs: Rouge" is based on the concept of "UNIVERSAL COMMUNICATION CONCEIVED AS THE HUMAN DESIRE OF AN OPEN WINDOW ON THE WORLD". The phone may be considered the main character of the story: after its performance in "Dekalog 9" it gives in the beginning the encore to Kieslowski's onlookers, followed step by step in its fast run across the world. The director looks deeply into the faculty of communication of human beings, without taking up a definite position about the ethical side of individual behavior. Once again he points out to us the unpredictability of future events, venting careful descriptions about strange courses and recourses of life separated from each other by a considerable number of years. Inexplicable combinations oddly converging in a series of continuous and upsetting situations. - Some books falling to the pavement. - One of them opening casually on a fatal page, predetermining the destiny of a future profession, as in a past similar occurrence. - Glimpses of daily life meeting fleetingly, ideally joined by their fondness for the fictitious musician Van den Budermayer. - Human fortunes marked by the most ill-fated coincidence.

In this piece of work deserving to be seen with our heart's eyes instead of our mind's ones we can witness a dialectic game between judge Jean Luis' (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Valentine Dussaut (Irene Jacob, maybe the sweetest actress of our times, together with the beautiful Winona Ryder), in a generational conflict between the experience of a world-weary old man and the self-conscious immaturity of a nice girl on the point of facing the steepest path of her ascending way. Kieslowski talks about "dialogue tests" between a disappointed human life and a youth unaware of her future, between a spiritless misanthropist and a spontaneous girl full of good sense of unselfishness.

And the final parade when the damp odor of tragedy still lingers in the air, with all the main characters of the whole trilogy in full evidence, saved by an accidental stroke of luck thank to the providential script cleverly written, gives us the extreme greetings of this movie master fully used up by his great passion for cinema. Only a sense of bitter regret and emptiness is left to remind us the existence of a void impossible to fill. GOOD-BYE KRZYSZTOF. WE MISS YOU SO MUCH!

Three Colors: White (1994)

Conjugal wickedness that cries out for vengeance

[8/10 · 29 April 2005]

WHITE IS THE COLOR OF DOMINIQUE'S WEDDING DRESS at the exit of the church, surrounded by the blazing whiteness of an overexposed background, full of subtle symbolisms imbued with hypnotic nuances. WHITE is the glimmer of the impending reflexes in the background of a lazy town buried under the snow. WHITE is the bust of a statue caressed as a memento of a love irremediably lost. WHITE is Dominique's final orgasm, a real scream of liberation from the yoke of her spiteful stubbornness, the false revenge of a woman unaware of her impending calamity, completely unacquainted with the bitter game of make-believe inspired by a wickedness that cries out for vengeance. According to Karol, the main character, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. His desire for revenge blows out his residual flickering flame of love after having suffered unforgivable affronts devised by his heartless wife.

"Trzy kolory: Bialy" (Three colors: White), second episode inspired to the three colors of the French flag and to the three principles of the French Revolution (Freedom, Equality and Fraternity), brings back to us two old acquaintances, Zbigniew Zamachowski (very similar to the pathetic Italian character Fantozzi,) and Jerzy Stuhr. It may be considered the most unforeseeable movie of the whole colors trilogy, full of sharp and witty tones of grotesque melodrama, with a reluctant and peevish Julie Delphy never seen so cold-mannered on the screen before. The inborn sense of Kieslovski's BLACK humor comes out here in all its might almost counterbalancing the concept of absolute WHITE connected with he story.

"Three colors: white" is very different from the other two episodes of the trilogy, but nonetheless the unmistakable touch of the genius can be generously found in the accurate care of the details, in the emotional intensity of the dialogs, in the careful analysis of the individual values, in his safe distance from the events represented by him, in his constant application of the principle of casualness and in his large use of metaphors (look for instance at the sequences of simultaneous flights of pigeons, symbolizing an open concept of freedom often cherished in his works). And Julie Delphy's following words sound as a sort of sincere homage to Kieslovski's art: "Kieslowski is a director who draws his inspiration from the true life of people, who instills his own soul into his movie, who dwells upon the details as if he wanted to examine the life under a microscope." Absolutely true. There is nothing else left to say: "Three colors: red" looms on the horizon.

The Decalogue: Dekalog, dziesiec (1989) Season 1, Episode 10

Based on a chain of events due to a singular inheritance.

[8/10 · 23 April 2005]

The end of one of the greatest series of all time. A tragicomic and paradoxical story about the desire for possession in-itself, involving the quiet existence of two brothers moved to behave in a foolish way against the will of their father by the hidden springs of human actions.

Based on a chain of events due to a singular inheritance, "Dekalog 10" (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods) is quite different from the other episodes of the series, but its high level of quality is a warranty as to the accuracy of the story. From a cinematic point of view the style is both ironic and grotesque and introduces a rich vein of frisky sense of humor. Kieslowski makes us perceive the necessity of a sigh of relief at the end of his human saga. He likes probably to say good-bye to us with a slight smile hovered on his lips, figuratively speaking. And even if at first sight, judging by appearances, he may seem eager to take a few moments to pause maybe in order to rid himself of all the stress stored in his body after nine destabilizing episodes, (look for instance at the impersonal photographic quality of his sequences, resulting in a less troubled atmosphere) the structure of the story is more complex than one might think. After a more careful probing of the key elements in "Dekalog 10", we can find some emblematic metaphors about the desire for possession merely for the purpose of possession itself. A mystifying anchorage during these difficult times. In the long run such eagerness can spread over the life of the soul like a catching disease, in such a way as to compel the human being to withdraw into himself. But Kieslowski doesn't like playing the moralist: he wants to be a witness, he tries so hard to do a careful investigation about unpredictable human events but doesn't claim to act the Supreme Judge as a substitute for the divine authority.

What's left at the end of the whole Dekalog series? The consciousness of one of the higher goals of human talent together with the sensation of an epochal masterpiece of vast proportions. A journey through the complex structure of the human psyche in order to check its reaction mechanisms and reveal every malfunctions in a strict impersonal way. Once again we may be able to draw moral conclusions from what is depicted here: the littleness of man's mind in comparison with the unpredictability of future events.

The Decalogue: Dekalog, dziewiec (1989) Season 1, Episode 9

The drama of a married couple driven to despair

[10/10 · 18 April 2005]

To my way of thinking, what really makes this episode of "Dekalog 9" ("Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife") very singular is the fundamental importance ascribed to dialectics between sex and love applied to the theme of transgression and violation of the bond of conjugal fidelity. The drama of a married couple driven to despair and harassed by problems not easy to solve floats before our eyes in a disturbing way. The gravity of the situation cannot be underestimated, even if the two of them are still linked together by a close bond of affection.

Kieslowski doesn't show any scruples about following Hanka's and Roman's despairing thoughts in the course of their restless, toiling existence and carries out his purpose by a series of very frequent close ups, using long focal length zoom lens, enveloping the two characters in a sort of crude grazing lighting, showing up faces furrowed with wrinkles, placing their features in anything but a favorable light, casting a gloomy shadow over their future, almost prefiguring the uncertain life of the soul kept aside for them. He looks mercilessly into their pale and strained faces, revealing false pretenses mingled with an indefinite sense of guilt, ready to expose their congenital hypocrisy, to dismantle every misleading sense of security. Truly determined to penetrate the defensive shield erected around the married couple, Kieslowski finds out painful scars of time concealed into the folds of their skin worn away by perpetual stress in their marriage, violates the privacy of their facial features revealing all their disarming vulnerability, all their secret consistency of pure mirrors of souls double-crossing each other.

In this embarrassing situation where the impurity of deviating thoughts finds its barycenter in ill-concealed impulses of jealousy, a particular mention goes to the directorial use of the phone, invested with the task of unmasking every ambiguous situations and gratified with many meaningful close ups. Once again the director takes delight in evoking a suggestive game of mirrors in the successful attempt of rendering with great evidence the sense of estrangement and the ambiguous atmosphere of the story. He redoubles the nervous tension due to the dialectic game of two lonely souls with their nerves on the edge, with their barren make-believe opportunely unmasked for the benefit of the audience. Even if the doubtful transgression of the ninth commandment is perceived vaguely, the ninth episode of the "Dekalog" is one of the most significant of the whole series, full of inmost Bergmanian suggestions. And already one can perceive clear premonitory echoes of "The double life of Véronique" between the folds of this story.

The Decalogue: Dekalog, osiem (1989) Season 1, Episode 8

A woman haunted by the memories of her unhappy childhood.

[10/10 · 15 April 2005]

Dekalog 8 introduces a debate about a situation described in the second episode of the series, with regard to some interesting researches about thematic morals made in an unadorned lecture hall. As in a game of mirrors, Kieslowski's magical poetry proposes subtle allusions, references, previous solutions analysed under different points of view.

The analysis of Elzbieta's personal story framed within the context of her restless past and recalled in the light of her present time made of painful and unavoidable confrontations proposes the harassing thought about our duty to God, about our moral obligations towards the Christian commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour". Is it possible to be merciful to our fellowmen even at the risk of violating the dictates of divine commandments? Are we allowed to help people even if we are aware about the incompatibility between the ethical principles applied to the evidences of religion and the intention of "bearing false witness against our neighbour" to a good purpose? Is it really possible to give up the idea of getting out of the clutches of the Nazi police a six-year-old Jewish child in the desperate need of a certificate of baptism only on account of moral and religious scruples? The dramatic explanation between Elzbieta, haunted by the memories of her unhappy childhood, and Zofia, the elder woman who refused to give her a passport to safety many years ago, call to our minds a sense of bewilderment and affliction.

Both of them are afraid of something going up in smoke around them and nothing escapes their remembrances of a painful past. Sad remembrances of course, because nothing hurts like the truth. Crude in the same manner as a vivisection of the soul. Conjured up with surgical precision in the coldness of an utterly impersonal ambient. Maybe only a cathartic face to face between the two women would give life to new friendly relations made of comprehension, explanations, reconciliations. Kieslowski divides all humanity into two parts: the saviors and the saved. His strict dialectics traces all the uneven steps of the story in a very subtle way. He likes to give back to human dignity its state of primitive and natural innocence, deeply upset by a pressing sense of misinterpreted obedience to the precepts of the Church.

The Decalogue: Dekalog, siedem (1989) Season 1, Episode 7

Lawful and unlawful mothers deprived of filial affection.

[9/10 · 11 April 2005]

The filial love pushed to the extreme is the main point of one of the most despairing episodes of the whole series. Painted in soft tones of a warm color photography "Dekalog 7", a sorrowful appeal against the theft of maternal affections, a touching scream of desperation against every form of domestic psychological abuse, describes the emotional journey of lonely souls towards a past immersed in voids of time and memory, thwarted by walls of self-referential egoism and full of wrong choices due to scarce sense of consciousness.

Lawful and unlawful mothers deprived of filial affection. Human beings wandering through the fury of winds of despair whose smell they can scent over and over again. An innocent child at the mercy of acts of adult selfishness destined to affect the course of human events. These are the main points of this collective drama of existence full of regression periods in infancy, clear admonishment in favor of a quiet and sensible mother-daughter relationship.

The director follows the story development most closely, avoiding to keep the events at a distance as if they were no concern of him, showing on the contrary a clear sensitiveness towards this anomalous drama of two mothers fighting over the possession of the same daughter driven passively from pillar to post. The seventh commandment, "Thou shalt not steal", must be intended in this case as the explication of a dangerous crime: the theft of a child both by her grandmother and by her real mother; the most blamable one depends on our points of view. In my opinion, for instance, to claim the right of someone else's maternity is the most reprehensible action because it does violence to the nature itself, bereaving the human being of his most precious treasure, fruit of a mutual choice of love. As usual, Kieslovski shows his complete respect of the par condicio: he finds both the fictitious mother and the real one guilty: the first one for having taken possession of someone else's motherhood; the second one for having stolen her real child. According to divine law (and to him) a theft is always a theft, and in this tormented quarrel between grown-up persons heedless of the potential damages suffered by a delicate childish psyche, will the ingenuous spontaneity of a child succeed in breaking the wall of incomprehension and hostility between kinsmen?

The Decalogue: Dekalog, szesc (1989) Season 1, Episode 6

A story is based on the eye's fictitious power

[10/10 · 7 April 2005]

This story is based on the EYE'S FICTITIOUS POWER, meant as a subtle and perverse kind of interference with our personal lives in the name of aims in clear contrast with every rules for civil living. Intended as a strict and precarious consequence of the obvious impossibility of coming to terms with one's own frustrated ambition, subjected to under-valuate the human interrelations dynamics. Acting as a comforting heaven-sent shelter from the dangers of the main character's hermetically sealed world, as an ambiguous way to take up a defensive position and give vent to the increased capability of the faculty of sight artfully increased at other people's expenses, whose privacy is being violated in their own homes.

The Dekalog 6, "Thou shalt not commit adultery", a shorter version of "A Short Film About Love", rotates around the barycenter of Tomek's room, a world apart from where he looks around epistemologically in search of some contiguous reality analyzed under his anomalous point of view, purified of all normal human contacts, always focused on Magda, his "bright" object of desire, incapable of facing her with open heart for fear of tasting the bitter flavor of frustration. Conscious of his aleatory capacity of interacting with reality by phone, Tomek may be considered a living symbol of the human inability to perform the least act of love. His disturbing condition of abusive collector of undue slices of reality is doomed to reveal all its limits owing to wrong synergism between his will power immersed in totalizing choices and the frailty of his immature mind deprived of any sense of security given up for lost. So his "bright" object of desire assumes the same solidity of an image reflected in the glass, completely devoid of all real consistence, even if endowed with a paralyzing erotic charge able to melt virtual juvenile ardors like snow in the sun.

Kieslowski shows here an unusual tendency toward reddish tones of the same color of that insane passion which drives Tomek to the perpetration of sexual impure acts forbidden by the sixth commandment, together with Magda, charming thirty-year-old woman affected by exhibitionist mania and late repentance for her sins, opaque and unlikely reminiscence of the evangelic Mary Magdalene. The red color assumes the natural function of dramatic passion, dominating the scene completely such as in the final chapter of the colors trilogy. But while in "Trois couleurs: Rouge" its presence is mixed with a sense of detachment and with skeptical attitude towards every passionate involvements, in "Dekalog 6" one can perceive from afar the heat of the blazing flame ready to burn out suddenly as soon as the real nature of love, fleeting and deceptive, can be unmasked.