Sydney Italian Film Festival 2014

More than thirty new Italian movies in impeccable sub titled digital theatrical copies - sound like film nut bliss? The down side is the cost, to which Palace have made a minor concession issuing season tickets that knock a couple of dollars off a film. To get the prices to a still hefty twelve bucks, you have to buy five, ten or twenty. That makes a bad choice expensive.

.I only worked through part of the schedule at those prices. The films I saw were quite presentable, though I do miss Gian Maria Volonte exposing corruption in high places and Lino Banfi doing fat jokes and there was nothing by Avati or Scola - not even his recent feet-off-the-pedals account of his association with Fellini.

We did get A Lonely Hero/L’intrepido the new movie from heavy hitter Gianni Amelio (Porte Apperte, L’America). Antonio Albanese (traffic cop in To Rome With Love) takes Milan fill-in jobs, while his grown son fails to straighten up and fly right. The location filming is superior, the ending too oblique.

The Mafia Only Kills in Summer/ La Mafia uccide solo d'estate is a distinctive job of mood juggling, juxtaposing Palermo Mafia outrages and the comic story of the kid who grows to be director Pif  and his pursuit of the winning Christina Capotondi. The ending is particularly effective, where he shows his own son monuments to the seventies events which he didn’t understand at the time.

The Worst Xmas of My Life/ Il peggior Natale della mia vita is the sequel to Alessandro
Genovese’s broad Worst Week of My Life, with current Italian star comic Fabio de Luigi’s
character back, starting a family, with Signorina Capotundi again, in Diego Abatuantuono’s
castle.

Those Happy Years/ Anni Felici is the new Daniele Luchetti film, an agreeable addition
to his imposing credits, again recalling the Seventies, when action painter Kim Rossi
Stuart finds wife Micaela Ramazotti demanding the same freedom he exercises with his
models and pairing with Martina Gedek,  observed by the young 8mm. camera owner son.

Christina Capotondi

Blame it On Freud/ Tutta colpa di Freud is another handsome multiple narrative from Paolo Genovese, dealing with the three daughters of shrink Marco Giallini and their love lives. The big romantic moments play well. The people are beautiful, the homes are beautiful and the scenery is beautiful. Two hours of it is like making a meal out of maron glacé.

South Is Nothing/ Il Sud è niente  on the other hand is a murky, enigmatic drama of the Mafia bearing down on Calabria fish shop man Vinicio Marchioni and androgynous daughter Miriam Kalquist. After watching him play a mute in Blame it On Freud, it’s startling to find Marchioni has a deep rich voice.

Marina is the prestige offering, the story of Rocco Granata, Italian singer-accordionist in Belgium, who had the surprise hit in the fifties. Made by Stijn Connix director of Daens, it fields a two dimensional musical biography in which the admirable Luigo Lo Casio and Donatella Finnochario find themselves stranded as rounded characters acting out a persecuted immigrants narrative. Jersey Boys it’s not.

A Lonely Hero - Albanese & Amelio

Turin on the Moon / La Luna su Torino is Davide Ferrario back in the city he determinedly chronicles. Bike riding Giacomo Leopardi is not having much luck with his crumbling family home or fetching tenant Manuela Parodi, in among the tourist attractions. OK.

Sydney Sibilia’s I Can Quit Whenever I Want/ Smetto quando voglio is a broad comedy with an interesting idea that’s already been thrashed in Breaking Bad. The retrenched chemistry professor and his colleagues go into the drug trade complete with king pins, shoot-outs, police stings and rehab. Striking, contrasty reversal colour.

More knockabout with A Boss in the Kitchen/ Un boss in salotto from Luca Minero and

rather more simple minded than his hardly cerebral Welcome to the South. Alleged
Camorista uncle Rocco Papaleo, previously represented as dead, is placed under house
arrest in the suburban home of aspiring ad man Luca Argentero. Suddenly every one
cultivates the family for its mob connection. Agreeable lightweight.

More somber Bruno Oliviero’s The Human Factor/ La variabile umana has the ever
admirable Silvio Orlandi as widower Milan police inspector called back from his desk job
to deal with the murder of a socialite the same night his own sixteen year old daughter is
arrested using his pistol.  Dim scope images slowly record the film’s intriguing, detailed
exposition.

Barrie Pattison