Io e Lei

Italian romantic film about two middle aged women whose 5 year-old romance suffers some ups and downs and serious doubts.  Very little that is new but it handles the question of doubts, of absences, of real love and of self-value inside a relationship well.  The leads, Margherita Buy (always excellent) and Sabrina Ferilli (not known to me but also fine) hold this movie together well and are supported by Maria Sole Tognazzi’s sensitive direction and attractive photography by Arnaldo Catinari.  A pleasant movie for a wet Sunday.

♦♦♦

A Five Star Life (Viaggio Sola)

This is quite an unusual film from Italy in the sense that it has little in the way of plot but is the story of a woman’s internal realization that the life she is living is not as free as she imagines.  Irene (Margherita Buy, fine as usual) is a hotel inspector for five star hotels and in the film we get to travel the world with her. It is an opulent life but very lonely and very much the same in each place.  She is at a bit of a loss emotionally, doting on her two nieces but estranged from day-to-day family life and still attached to her ex (Stefano Accorsi) who is in turn in a new relationship and confronting fatherhood.  The film takes an interesting turn when in Berlin, Irene meets Kate a feminist and writer and has some illuminating conversations.  Although it is a blatant artifice to convey the film’s message, Lesley Manville as Kate has the presence to make her character believable and compelling.  So, while the film may e4nd up seeming a little frothy and insignificant, it is elegantly made and easy to watch.

★★★

Mia Madre

This latest slice of life from Nanni Moretti features Margherita, a film director trying to make a film about union resistance to foreign takeover, while at the same time dealing with the slow and foreseen death of her mother.  It is a typical humanistic film from Moretti blending truly comic moments (some of the scenes on the film set with the intractable foreign diva of an actor are priceless with John Turturro at his best), others of great poignancy and beauty.  And in the middle of it all is Rome and its daily life.  Margherita Buy shows why she is the foremost Italian actress these days in another deep and subtle performance.  Excellent indeed.  Guilia Lazzari is fine as the mother and Moretti himself fits in well as the brother.  The use of music by Arvo Part is also a great success.  Moretti’s films will never be perfectly neat but they are fine film making and a great documentation of modern Italy.

★★★★+