Best of Youth

Best of Youth started as a mini series in Italian TV. It's popularity won the series a spot in BBC4. It didn't stop there, this six hour movie went on to win the prestigious Un Certain Regard award at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. A story of two brothers, it is also a portrayal of the evolution of contemporary Italy, from mid twentieth century to the present. Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio Boni stars as the two brothers, birds of the same feather yet different as chalk and cheese. The film is a grand procession of faces and places through the lives of the brothers as Italy evolves into a twenty-first century nation.

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stromboli

Stromboli

Ingrid Bergman is one of my favorite actresses from the yesteryear. Directed by Roberto Rossellini, a great director of neorealist cinema, the then-paramour of Bergman and the father of her illegitimate child(later he married her), this film was overlooked and thrashed by the critics not for its lack of quality but because of the illicit affair between the director and the lead actress. The affair almost ended Bergman's career in Hollywood, before she resurfaced six years later with a major hit.

Back to Stromboli, the title is the name of one of the most active volcanoes on earth, situated on one of the Aeolian Islands of Italy. I think the film was made there as well. It is the story of a young woman(played by Bergman), a foreigner and a war refugee who gets married to an Italian man and sets up home at his village in Stromboli.The clash of cultures is apparent from the start, the villagers don't like the new bride and she, in turn despises the claustrophobic nature of the island community.

A natural film, probably because it was originally made in italian and not exactly tailormade for Hollywood, Stromboli is a cultural and cinematic education for the viewer.

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Respiro

Shot at a beautiful Italian fishing village on the coasts of sun drenched Mediterranean, Respiro reminded me a lot of fishing villages in India. The only I difference I could see was the fisherfolk in Italy were white tending to be brown, whereas in India they were brown tending to be black, all the rest seems the same.

A beautiful film, about mothers and sons, husbands and wives, children living in a un-artificial world and a lot of Vespas. For me it is film about unfettered childhoods, about villages acting as one big family and simple human travails and joys. Emmanuel Crialese, the director sure is very talented, but why is it there are only three films, ofcourse more should be on the way. For now, I will try to get the other two, which I desperately want to see now that I am so moved by Respiro.

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Bicyle Thief, The 

Vittorio De Sica's acclaimed masterpeice , The Bicycle Thief brought back memories of old Satyajit Ray films, black and white films of another era which were touted a class apart. Ofcourse, they were, they reminded us of a not so colorful world we inhabit daily, but nonetheless poignant and sanguine. Bicycle thief is set in post war Italy where people are struggling to make ends meet, not at all confirming to the glorious picture of Europe that people from developing countries might have of it.

The hero of the film lands a job, after a long wait, whose requirement is that he should have bicyle, which he procures after repaying the loan he has taken on the bicycle. As luck would have it on the first day of the job itself the bicycle gets stolen and the movie follows his search for the bicycle and its thief on the very next day thru' the streets of the city, with his young son.

The young boy who follows his father in his search has been portrayed as a silent observer and witness of all the events, at once the viewer is the man and the boy. Lamberto Maggiorani, who plays the main character of the man who loses his bicycle is brilliant inspite of being a non actor. The child actor Enzo Staiola was casted right from the streets to play the character of the little boy, it is as if he is the character. The movie won the best foreign film Oscar in 1949. By some coincidence or similarity this film reminds me a lot of Bimal Roy's Do Bhiga Zameen.

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