Fellow Film Lovers
Thanks to all who attend Roma, Citta Aperta, on March 8.
The following are the details of our next film night:
Film: Caro Diario - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109382/
Date: Monday April 19, 2010 @ 7:00 p.m.
Place: The Pearl Company, 16 Steven Street, Hamilton: http://www.thepearlcompany.ca
Guest Speaker: Professor Franco Gallippi
Price: $10
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This film left me perplexed.
ReplyDeleteI understand that it was a film in three acts with each distinct from the others but I searched for some overarching theme or thread and found none other than, possibly, that it was simply about Nanni Moretti's thoughts on such diverse topics as the Roman suburbs, dance, film, child rearing, television and the health care system.
I enjoyed his quirky Woody Allen like behaviour in the first act as well as the child rearing them in the second part. I thought that the children were being used as a metaphor for the Italian government and establishment in that Moretti was making a statement that the country was being run in an infantile way and thereby going to ruin.
On the whole this film was much more perplexing and thought provoking than I expected.
I am new to Cinema Insieme, and Italian film, so have no other Nanni Moretti productions with which to compare or gather insight. I had, however, recently heard Micheal Moore speak in Toronto, and then watched again, his film 'Sicko'. Moretti struck me as just such an 'observer' of the 'absurdities all around us'. Like Moore, Moretti seemed to be a sly satirist presenting us with some ridiculous realities that appear completely farcical when portrayed. His experiences with the medical maze would be laughable if they were not so true. I particularly liked the 'parent parody'; you just want to know: what are they thinking?
ReplyDeleteThank you for an interesting evening...
Kathy Brownlow
Among the comments made last night, one in particular was pursued after our discussion. Several of our viewers underlined the fact that Moretti criticizes the tendency of the Roman suburbia of the eighties and nineties to no longer go to the cinema or to the pizzeria for night out. The scene that was brought to my attention was the one where Moretti is riding through the suburbs of Rome on his Vespa in the first episode “On My Vespa.” At some point he stops to talk to a man who is getting out of his car and is holding VHS cassettes in his hand. Moretti says he is terrified by the smell of VHS cassettes, pizza boxes, and slippers. It is obvious that Moretti, as a film director, is concerned with the fact that the cinemas are not as full as they used to be and even when they are American films are dominating over the Italian product. This is eloquently expressed when he meets Jennifer Beals from the film Flashdance (1983). He first says the film changed his life and has wanted nothing more than to learn how to dance like Jennifer Beals. As many may know, the actress did not do the dancing in the film. Moretti was probably aware of this and in a very comical way expresses the effect of American cinema in Italy. That is, what is fiction in American cinema has in many ways become a model for reality in Italy. Flashdance is one version of the American dream: a young girl with no formal training in dancing gets a chance to study dance at one of the most prestigious dance schools in America. This film, Moretti seems to imply, is one of many that has dominated the imagination of Italians. In the scene where he actually meets the real Jennifer Beals, it is not by chance that Moretti chooses to be portrayed as being “off centre.” It is as if he were commenting on the extent to which the Italian masses have given themselves to an idea of American culture which is filtered through cinema and TV.
ReplyDeleteThis extreme is developed further in the second episode “Islands” when his friend becomes addicted to American soap operas. It makes for a very humorous situation, especially when the friend notices a group of American tourists and feels compelled to send Moretti to inquire about what is happening on The Bold and the Beautiful, since in the States they are always several episodes ahead. Moretti is fiercely attacking what he feels are the harmful effects of TV viewing. He also makes a connection between Homer’s Odyssey and an Italian TV show called Chi l’ha visto? This was pointed out by our audience and it may be Moretti’s statement about TV replacing our classical literature. Whether this leads to negative or positive results is arguable. The question one might ask is if Moretti thinks that cinema is more effective than television in communicating sustaining myths or models. Since Moretti is a film director, it is clear that he is a defender of his art. And his cinema successfully combines high and low culture with a strong element of humour in an attempt to preserve the poetic dimension of cinema, which is something that television and blockbuster films often fall short of.
One last thing to note: the last episode “The Doctors” ends with Moretti drinking a glass of water. After his “odyssey” from doctor to doctor and a complicated list of unnecessary medicine, Moretti seems to suggest a return to simplicity and to the basics.
Franco Gallippi
For me the overarching theme has to do with Moretti's three journey, or odysseys. In the first, he is on his Vespa visiting the less touristy Rome, in the second he goes with his friend on an odyssey to the islands and the third is an odyssey to find or restore his physical health.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of 'travel' whether in Dante or Mark Twain or indeed Lord of the Rings always involves adventures, danger, brave feats and the triumph of good over evil. Moretti, in a very humorous way turns these purposeful journeys on their collective heads. He seems to suggest that unlike the mythical heroes in other works of literature, 20th century man is a passive observer at best. On his Vespa, all he can do is comment; he doesn't act, he watches. He can't even bring himself to learn how to dance. It is interesting and ironic that he was motivated by 'watching' the movie Flashdance and doubly ironic that his hero, Jennifer Beals, wasn't herself the dancer of the film. Adding insult to injury, this fake celluloid dancer, thinks Moretti is either crazy or just 'scemo' or a simpleton.
In the islands, Moretti and his friend leave to work on their novels and resort trying to 'combinare qualche cosa', or 'just do something';they fritter their time away doing nothing. They meet a mayor who can't get anything done in spite of grandiose dreams; Moretti's friend lives vicariously through television and becomes so addicted that he gets Moretti to ask some American tourists to tell them the plot of a soap opera; they even meet the topsy turvy world of child empowerement when they run into parents afraid of their kids. Worst of all, when they go to the one island that promises all kinds of adventures, they flee fearing the engagment that such an experience would demand.
The third and final odyssey is a medical one. Moretti stumbles from one doctor to another searching for medical wholeness and relief from his embarrassing and annoying itch, only to be laden down with drugs which have no salutary effect at all. In the end he only learns that he has been mis-diagnosed and resorts, as Prof. Gallippi has stated, to the water of life as a simple cure to what doesn't ail him.
I agree with Charles, the film is perplexing and it has taken me a while to find a theme I can at least attach some meaning to. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.