THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Haunting De Sica Holocaust Drama in Digital Restoration at TIFF Bell Lightbox Series, "More Than Life Itself"

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Dominique Sanda, Helmut Berger,
Lino Capolicchio, Fabio Testi, Romolo Valli

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The grandly sprawling walled estate of the wealthy, powerful and aristocratic Finzi-Continis family in Ferrara, Italy has always been a world unto itself, but with the rise of Fascism in the 30s, it becomes a hermetically sealed paradise, a refuge from the madness of a country turning topsy turvy with prejudice, hatred and on the brink of world war. The Finzi-Continis are no ordinary family. They're Jewish in a country rapidly embracing virulent Antisemitism, but even amongst the Jews of Ferrara, they've always been set apart, living upon a pedestal of great intellect and seemingly high above those Jews amongst the middle and working class.

As always, though, prejudice and class seem to be the domain of older generations and the youth have always held the highest regard and friendship for each other, so that even when the wealthiest, most aristocratic Jews have been banned from the elite tennis clubs of Ferrara, its youngest, both Jew and Gentile, secret themselves away within the walls of the Finzi-Continis gardens to carry-on their traditions of weekly tennis matches and friendship.

Based on the novel by Ferrara's own Giorgio Bassani, one of Italy's great authors, it made perfect sense that one of Italy's great filmmakers, Vittoria De Sica would craft a movie adaptation of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. One of De Sica's last films, it was not only honoured with one of a multitude of Academy Awards his work garnered, but was indeed a triumph of the style and sensitivity he'd become known for with such great works as Bicycle Thieves, Shoeshine, The Children Are Watching Us and amongst so many others, the immortal Umberto D.

Bassani was a Jew who managed to survive the Holocaust and continued to teach, write (pseudonymously, of course) and fight the fascist movement as a member of the Italian underground. Many of his books, like this one, dealt with life under Fascism for the Jews of Italy, but thematically, he found himself drawn to the notion of memory and its ability to act as both a balm and a force of great sadness and danger.

This is what De Sica so beautifully captures in this simple love story between childhood lovers, the aristocratic Micol Finzi-Contini (Dominique Sanda) and Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), the son of Jewish family of the middle class. Though they're love is deep, Micol looks upon Giorgio as a brother-figure and breaks his heart when she takes up with the ruggedly handsome gentile Bruno Malnate (Fabio Testi). For Micol, the memories of childhood should not be tarnished by "romance" and instead she believes she must instead court the sexy socialist who is her opposite in every way, but as such, provides the kind of spark she can't get from her pea-in-the-pod Giorgio.

De Sica places considerable emphasis on the romantic entanglements and yearnings of this triangle, as well as Micol's deep love for her own brother, the sickly Alberto (Helmut Berger). Though every so often, the realities of fascism and Antisemitism creep in (the young intellectuals are terrified they'll not be allowed to graduate from the universities they're enrolled in), the Finzi-Continis. especially Micol, drive themselves deeper within the walls of their estate. Giorgio's father (Romolo Valli) attempts to ease his son's sorrow by suggesting that the Finzi-Continis have always lived in such an elevated station that he never even considered them Jewish.

He's certainly right about the family's elevated station since their garden seems to not only be a physical enclosure from the rest of the world, but that the entire family, especially Micol, live in a garden that exists in their minds. This is, of course one of De Sica's greatest triumphs as a filmmaker. He so indelibly captures a sense of enclosure that we, as an audience are lulled by it as well.

When Fascism in Ferrara explodes, it comes with such a fury and so swiftly that we, as viewers, seem as unprepared for the film's final, devastating minutes as the Finzi-Continis family are. As Jews are rounded up and separated for deportation to the death camps, we can't help but feel a horrendous catch in our throats, especially as Micol and her aged grandmother huddle together in a cramped classroom converted into a waiting room for death. Memory rears both its beautiful and ugly heads as Micol realizes she's in the classroom of her childhood.

Looking out the hazy windows upon the grey, grim world, De Sica fills his soundtrack with "Kel Maleh Rachamim", the Jewish prayer of mercy for the souls of the departed.

And yes, we weep for the departed and their memories of a world that once seemed so innocent, so beautiful.

De Sica was and still is one of the greatest. Even in his last years as an artist, he continued to make us weep for the disenfranchised, the exploited and the hated, but all the while, still managing to infuse us with humanity and with love itself.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

The digital restoration of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis plays at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. For Tix, times and dates, visit the TIFF website HERE. For those unable to attend this screening, one assumes the restored film will soon be available on Blu-Ray. In the meantime, there is a Sony Pictures Classics DVD out there with a passable transfer until this new one is released more widely.

THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Haunting Vittorio De Sica Classic screened on rare 35mm print at TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinematheque series "MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF: REDISCOVERING THE FILMS OF VITTORIO DE SICA", programmed by the inimitable James Quandt (also available on a lovely Criterion Collection DVD).

The Children Are Watching Us - I bambini ci guardano (1942)
dir. Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Emilio Cigoli,
Luciano De Ambrosis, Isa Pola,
Adriano Rimoldi, Giovanna Cigoli

Review By Greg Klymkiw

On a narrative level, the cruelty and selfishness of a young mother is what lies at the heart of Vittorio De Sica's The Children Are Watching Us and as such, seems an especially appropriate element for the rich and consistent mise en scène to present the entire story from the perspective of a 5 year old child. There are many powerful aspects to this classic motion picture, but the fact that director De Sica wisely places his camera eye-level to the child in question is almost gruelling in terms of the pain he wrenches from the story and the emotion he extracts from the audience.

Though the film slightly pre-dates the period of Italian neorealism which began with Luchino Visconti's Ossessione in 1943 and Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City in 1946, De Sica is already playing with a stark element of realism in the storytelling. We might crave a happy ending, but it would be false, not unlike so many pictures generated in pre-War and wartime Italy.

The Children Are Watching Us was filmed during wartime in 1942, but its politically and socially restful qualities come from the fact that the bombing and shelling did not shock the country into fear and despair until the fall of that year. In addition to utilizing many real locations in tandem with realistically dressed/designed Cinecittà studio work, De Sica cast his central player, Luciano De Ambrosis as the sensitive child Pricò from a non-traditional background. De Sica used the child's already heightened sadness over his mother's recent death to astounding effect in this tragic tale of maternal betrayal.

The film is neatly and boldly divided into 2 parts quite literally as De Sica provides "Part One" and "Part Two" titles to signal the film's two key movements. In the first part, we learn that Pricò's mother Nina (Isa Pola) is engaged in a love affair. When she leaves her husband Andrea (Emilio Cigoli) and essentially abandons her child for the handsome smarmy lover Roberto (Adriano Rimoldi), both father and son are devastated.

Though the loyal housekeeper Agnese (Giovanna Cigoli) is a bedrock, Andrea feels Pricò might be better off with female relatives, but neither of these arrangements come to happy endings and the child is reunited with his father. After a few days of carnal abandon with Roberto, Nina sheepishly returns after ending the affair. Andrea grudgingly allows her to stay for the sake of son needing a Mother. Though he's curt towards her, Andrea allows his bitterness to subside and decides a family vacation at a seaside resort away from Rome is in order.

The second movement is marked by a gradually touching reconciliation between husband and wife. When Andrea confidently returns to work in Rome, he allows Nina and Pricò to remain for a few days in the idyllic hotel with its lush sun-dappled beaches. The happy Hubby feels like some quality time between Mother and Son will be a positive thing and he also secretly decides he'll replace the old curtains (which Nina always detested) with lush new drapes in their flat's boudoir.

Alas, a male dog will always come sniffing around and a bitch in heat will respond in kind. Roberto shows up at the resort and Pricò is left alone whilst Mom willingly receives her lover's prodigious root.

Hell breaks loose in two ways. One is expected, the other is not. Both are unbearably shattering.

De Sica more than superbly handles the performances and scene blocking with the skill of a fine craftsman, but as an artist, he excels with the kind of visual touches that only a filmmaker infused with celluloid in his DNA can do.

We never forget the title for a moment. Our eyes are ultimately drawn to Pricò in virtually every scene as the actions of the adults allow us to naturally shift our focus to the child's gaze. The child, it seems, is not only watching, but always watching, so much so that when Pricò stops training his gaze upon his mother, lulled into a kind of happy complacency during a magic act in the hotel ballroom, we're initially unaware that his eyes are not where they've been for the whole film. Once we realize this, our hearts do indeed sink, and the narrative does not "disappoint" us in this respect when Pricò's eyes shift back to his mother's activity.

It's a heartbreaker of monumental proportions.

De Sica also never lets us forget the eyes of the child with the intelligently placed camera, always at Pricò's eye level, whether we're with him in a specific shot/scene or not. This allows us to always view the dramatic action as if we are indeed the child and that what we see is both what he sees and how he sees it. Again, we are Pricò, and though it's an intermittently joyous perspective, it is, more often than not, a devastatingly sad point of view.

This mise en scène is never oppressive nor heavy-handed. De Sica's touch is pure gossamer in this respect. However, at one point, De Sica uses Pricò's point of view to deliver one of the most haunting nightmare sequences ever committed to film, brilliantly framed in the reflections of a train's window as it speeds along a pitch-black night. The images here are as utterly devastating to us as they would be to a child like Pricò.

As if that isn't powerful enough, De Sica maintains this position during a scene where Andrea begs and finally begins to order Pricò to reveal the truth about Nina's indiscretions - closeups of eyes at a child's eye-level have never been more emotionally calamitous.

Eventually, when De Sica presents the final moments of Nina begging for forgiveness, the camera's position remains fixed as it always has been, only this time we experience how physically tiny, yet infused with strength this child is.

And in spite of this strength, De Sica forces us to experience the child being swallowed up by a world he knows he must face alone. It's a knockout, just as the picture itself ultimately is. The children are indeed watching us and De Sica has crafted one of the most devastating reminders of that fact, one that none of us should ever forget.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *****

The Children Are Watching Us plays this summer at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on 35MM. For dates, times and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE. If you aren't in Toronto for this wonderful experience, the Criterion Collection DVD presents a fine transfer of the film along with two superb added value features, an interview with an Italian critic, but most astoundingly, a great interview with the actor who played Pricò.

Feel free to order the Criterion DVD directly from the following links. You'll be supporting the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner if you do so.

In Canada, order HERE
in the USA order HERE
and in the UK order HERE

SANDRA (Vaghe stelle dell'orsa…) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Electra Myth Sizzles as magnificent melodrama under Luchino Visconti's masterful rendering, screened on ALL-NEW 4K restoration at TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinematheque series "SUMMER IN ITALY", programmed by the inimitable James Quandt.

Sandra - Vaghe stelle dell'orsa… (1965)
Dir. Luchino Visconti
Starring: Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel,
Michael Craig, Fred Williams, Marie Bell, Renzo Ricci

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I can think of few juicier morsels of grand melodrama than Luchino Visconti's Sandra (Vaghe stelle dell'orsa…), a modern re-imagining of the Greek myth involving Electra, the Princess of Argos, who, in cahoots with brother Orestes, spins a mad plot to avenge the death of their father King Agamemnon at the hands of Queen Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.

Visconti, however, never content to merely ape his inspirations, takes the aforementioned narrative base and careens wildly into the territory of an opera plunged into the deepest depths of genuinely perverse sexual obsession. (A layer of wartime collaboration, Auschwitz and a reclamation of Jewish Heritage is stirred in for good measure along with attempted rape and suicide for those so inclined.)

With the astoundingly baroque black and white cinematography of Armando Nannuzzi, Visconti spins a (seemingly) measured yarn which mounts ever-so broodingly to a shocking, over-the-top climax and a denouement which is as fraught with irony as it is deeply moving.

Beginning at a swank cocktail party in Paris and winding up amongst petty bourgeoisie squabbling within an ancient, crumbling, family estate in the provincial Italian enclave of Volterra, Sandra is a grandly entertaining belly flop into a pool of madness and incest. It makes the sordid spectacles of Giuseppe Verdi at his most floridly, bombastically romantic seem quaint and subtle.

Where Sandra deviates from the Elektra myth is in substituting the sexuality of Daddy worship (and competing with Mommy for Daddy's love) to a deep sexual spark between the sister (ravishing Claudia Cardinale as the title character) and brother Gianni (dreamy Jean Sorel) as a reaction to the siblings' joint belief that their long-dead Jewish scientist father was betrayed to the Nazis and Fascists by their Antisemitic concert pianist mother (Marie Bell) who has now gone completely insane and the mad matriarch's blusteringly petty lover and eventual second husband (Renzo Ricci).

Add to this mix Sandra's loving, but clueless American husband (Michael Craig) and the hunky town doctor (Fred Williams) who still carries a torch for her and we've got ourselves a heady brew, indeed.

Much of the action is centred within the family estate. Sandra and her hubby are visiting to convene at a special ceremony honouring her late father who died at Auschwitz. It's a nice enough tribute, but its reason for being is that the family fortunes are dwindling and the once massive grounds can no longer be cared for. They've been taken over by the town as a Memorial Park dedicated to Sandra's Dad.

There is much in the manner of slinking and skulking about the corridors, corners and shadows of the once grand old house, along with all manner of hushed whispers, most of them related to the unholy relations twixt Sandra and Orestes. The only time vocal timbres gush out full throttle are when we meet Mad Momma who screeches out her various hatreds and regrets with considerable bile and lung power.

The centrepiece of the entire picture is the voluptuous, pouty-lipped, big-ole-dark-eyed Claudia Cardinale, who manages to acquit herself as both a fine actress and ravishing camera-loves-her sexpot.

As is his wont, Visconti allows us to wallow in the majestic mire of the melodrama to our hearts' content, but for those seeking added noggin stimuli (the noggin that thinks, of course), Visconti handily invests the movie with moments of sheer visual poetry and much in the way of historical, social and class-related ruminations. Happily, one can take one's pick or go for the fully loaded big banana split of sex, sin, art and politics.

It's the Visconti way, God Bless Him.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *****

Sandra is playing in Toronto at the TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX. For dates, times and tickets, visit their website HERE. For those who cannot make it to Toronto, a gorgeous import DVD from Italy is available through Amazon. One hopes it's merely a matter of time before the 4K restoration will be available for sell-through on Blu-Ray.

The Region 2 Italian Import of Sandra can be ordered directly via the links below (and as such, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner).

In Canada order HERE

In USA order HERE

In UK order HERE

QUEEN AND COUNTRY, THE WONDERS, THE RESURRECTION OF A BASTARD, ON THE TRAIL OF THE FAR FUR COUNTRY, THAT GUY DICK MILLER - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - A ridiculous number of first-run offerings yields a bumper crop of delights

5 movies
All screening this weekend

All yield first-rate entertainment!
5 Film Corner Film Reviews for the price of 1:

*****

QUEEN AND COUNTRY

THE WONDERS

THE RESURRECTION OF A BASTARD

ON THE TRAIL OF THE FAR FUR COUNTRY

THAT GUY DICK MILLER
*****

Queen and Country (2014)
Dir. John Boorman
Starring: Callum Turner, David Thewlis, Caleb Landry Jones, Richard E. Grant, Tamsin Egerton, Vanessa Kirby

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In 1987 John Boorman (Deliverance, Point Blank) delivered his sweet, funny and happily (as well as sadly) nostalgic Hope and Glory, the autobiographical journey of Bill Rohan, a young lad growing up in London during the Blitz and his subsequent adventures when moved out to the country for safety. One of the strangest and most delightful aspects of Boorman's picture was how it focused on a boy and his chums discovering that their bombed-out city had transformed into one big playground. Tempering this were the more sobering realities of life, love, family and yes, even the realities of war when they creep into Bill’s view beyond his mere child’s eyes.

It's now 25 years later and the 82-year-old Boorman delivers a sequel, Queen and Country. Bill (Callum Turner) is now a young man and he's been called up for two years of mandatory military service to dear old Blighty. Much to the chagrin of the regiment's commanding officer (Richard E. Grant), he forms a veritable Dynamic Duo with his cheeky, irreverent chum Percy Hapgood (Caleb Landry Jones) in which the lads wreak considerable havoc in the barracks - from basic training through to the end of their short military careers.

The lads' chief nemesis is the humourless, mean-spirited, borderline psychotic, stiff-upper-lip and decidedly by-the-book Sgt. Major Bradley (David Thewlis) who proves to be the bane of their existence. That said, the boys turn those tables quite handily and indeed become an even huger bane of Bradley's existence - pilfering the beloved regiment clock, ignoring protocol during typing lessons (YES! Typing lessons!) and eventually using "the book" to gain an upper hand over their superiors.

The humour and events are mostly of the gentle and good-natured variety - from Bill courting Ophelia (Tamsin Egerton) a beautiful ice-Queen with a dark secret, to Percy wooing Dawn (Vanessa Kirby), Bill's sexy sister during a happy leave-time in the country where the entire Rohan family joins in the thrill of unboxing a television set, madly attempting to get the roof antenna reception just right and gathering round the flickering monochrome cathode ray images which capture the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth.

There is darkness to Boorman's tale, however, and though our characters are far away from the explosive Hope and Glory rubble of the Blitz, the very real and scary prospect of being called up for active duty in Korea looms large. As well, the horror of war slowly creeps into the character of Bradley when eventually the shenanigans perpetrated upon him reveal why his mask might not be as firmly affixed as anyone thinks.

The final third of the film is imbued with one emotional wallop after another including a court martial, harrowing trips to a veterans' hospital, military prison and finally a very sweet and deeply moving tribute to both love and cinema.

Queen and Country is a lovely, elegiac capper to the long, illustrious career of a grand, old man of the movies. That said, I desperately hope Mr. Boorman has it in him to deliver one final instalment in the early life of Bill Rohan. We've been treated to the Blitz, post-war England and now, I do think an excursion into the Swinging 60s is in order.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

Queen and Country is currently in theatrical release in Canada via Search Engine Films and in the USA via BBC Worldwide America.

*****

The Wonders (2014)
Dir. Alice Rohwacher
Starring: Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck, Alba Rohrwacher, Luís Huilca Logrono, Monica Belluci

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Director Alice Rohwacher displays such love for all the tiny details of traditional farm life in rural Italy that we slip into the slow delicate rhythm of each day and come to view even the most mundane actions in her second feature film The Wonders with breathtaking awe and excitement.

One thing we cannot miss, however, is the crumbling ancient farmhouse, the endless dirt and dust, often grey, cloudy skies and the filthy decrepitude of the honey extraction lab where the film's central character, young teen Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu) expertly plies the trade her stern father Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck) has encumbered her with; the family is comprised of four daughters and lacking a son, she is Dad's "natural" heir to the family business of beekeeping. Our gaze is so fixed upon every meticulously rendered action involving the bees and honey that we almost want to dismiss the clear visual signs that subtly symbolize a way of life that is sadly dying.

If you ever wanted to know how honey is brought to your table, the film is so infused with a sense of neo-realist style that there's an almost direct cinema documentary approach to the scenes of beekeeping. One of the most fascinating scenes involves the retrieval of a colony of honey bees that have swarmed. It's presented, as all the farm life scenes, as directly related to both character and drama. Here we really see and understand how brilliant Gelsomina is as a beekeeper, in spite of her innate desire to break free of the shackles of rural life. Upon discovering the empty hive, she's the one who leads the way to the escaped bees with a quiet intensity. Once she expertly locates them, Rohwacher trains her lens upon an almost nail-bitingly suspenseful scene in which Gelsomina climbs up the tree to where a veritable mound of bees, thousands upon thousands of them, have affixed themselves in the shape of a traditional oval hive to a branch high up. Wolfgang is not far behind with the open, empty hive while Gelsomina kicks at the branch repeatedly and waves the startled bees towards the box her father holds upwards which, the bees hightail into for safety and security. (Now I know what to do with my own daughter the next time we have a swarming amongst our hives. I'm sure she'll be thrilled. Or, maybe not.)

In spite of the film's measured quality - actually, even because of it - the central conflict the family faces is being shut down by local health authorities for running an old-fashioned honey extraction lab which does not conform to the standards of the bureaucracy. Bringing it up to snuff will cost a small fortune and the family is dirt poor. Though they're getting a small amount of extra money when Wolfgang insists they take in a young juvenile delinquent (Luís Huilca Logrono) as a ward, it will hardly be enough. However, the lad proves to be a decent added pair of "male" hands and to Dad's chagrin, a definite romantic interest for his burgeoning young lady of a daughter (whom he insists is still a child in spite of grooming her and forcing her to work as an adult).

Gelsomina is far ahead of her father's limited curves and even has plans to save the farm. Though Dad objects, she is inspired to enter her family in "Countryside Wonders", a cheesy reality-TV show searching for the most impressive traditional rural farmers. Enchanted by the gorgeous, gaudily-attired, Fellini-like host of the show (Monica Belluci), our plucky teen protagonist goes ahead and secretly enters the family anyway.

The film is full of stunning images, though none of them are of the picture-postcard variety. Captured on real Super-16 film stock, there isn't a single frame of picture that is not tied to the drama (albeit of the muted kind). Rohwacher continually dazzles us, but there's one set-piece in her beautiful film that is as magical and moving as any that have been captured in the grand history of Italian Cinema - the reality TV-show itself and the family's participation in it; especially a haunting, moving and almost-heartbreaking performance in which the family's juvenile delinquent ward whistles a strangely mournful tune as Gelsomina, often in extreme closeup opens her mouth to allow actual bees to slowly clamber from within and to walk gently upon her beautiful face.

There aren't a lot of films out there right now which qualify for instant classic status, but The Wonders, winner of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix, most definitely does.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5 Stars

The Wonders is currently in theatrical release via FilmsWeLike.

*****

The Resurrection of a Bastard (2014)
Dir. Guido van Driel
Starring: Yorick van Wageningen, Goua Robert Grovogui, Juda Goslinga, Jeroen Willems

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I've seen plenty of crime pictures in my time, probably more than most. As such, I've probably seen every conceivable act of violence concocted by filmmakers and/or reproduced from reality. I thought I'd seen everything, but until seeing graphic novelist/artist Guido van Driel's feature debut The Resurrection of a Bastard, I had never seen a criminal remove someone's eyeball through the intense suction of a vacuum cleaner's hose.

I'd say my life is now relatively complete.

This, by the way, is not the only shocking display of ugly, brutal carnage in van Driel's grim and darkly (at times, screamingly) funny existential crime picture, but the real joy in the work is found in its atmosphere of viciousness.

We follow two stories presented in slightly skewed order which eventually converge to yield a staggering conclusion. The primary tale involves Ronnie (Yorick van Wageningen), a (mostly) poker-faced strong-arm debt-collection thug for James Joyce (Jeroen Willems), a scumbag, guitar-picking drug kingpin. Much of the film involves Ronnie and his sad-sack right hand man (Juda Goslinga) as they drive about the Dutch countryside (where most of their activities take place) and the film slowly reveals the reasons behind the vicious thug's neck brace and his almost ethereal comportment.

The other tale involves Eduardo (Goua Robert Grovogui), a recent immigrant to Holland who is trying to build a new life and fulfil his dream of becoming a car mechanic like his father. Mostly, though, he's trying to forget the horror of the unspecified African nation he's fled from as a political refugee. We get a salient clue as to what this gentle man with haunted eyes left behind. When a friendly cab driver asks him about his father, Eduardo reveals that his Dad is now dead from, "Chop, chop, chop." (Given all the extreme violence in the film, this is, in fact, one of the most powerful expressions of it.)

Both men have pain and regrets. One has had a near death experience which is eerily reproduced, the other has more than likely experienced one. What we experience of the latter character are the implications of a literal (or even figurative) resurrection.

In one case we see a man whose viciousness gives way to contemplation, in the other, a gentle man whose pain explodes during a scene involving the cruel killing of a rat. Both men find each other in a place of seeming solace, but rustling with the leaves of despair.

While The Resurrection of a Bastard might occasionally veer too deeply into art-house reverie and utilize a couple of too-obvious nods to Quentin Tarantino, there is no denying the film's power and the fact that it signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in filmmaking.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3 and-a-half Stars

The Resurrection of a Bastard is currently in theatrical and VOD release via Syndicado.

*****

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country (2014)
Dir. Kevin Nikkel

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Canadian filmmaker Kevin Nikkel has achieved what might be considered an impossibility with his film On the Trail of the Far Fur Country. Literally following in the footsteps of groundbreaking filmmakers almost a century earlier, he presents a stirring document juxtaposing the lives of northern Aboriginal people then and now.

In 1919, Harold Wyckoff was hired by the then-mighty Hudson's Bay Company to shoot footage for a feature film to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the company's building blocks, the fur trade in northern Canada. The company had been granted one-twelfth of the world's available land to carry out their business from 1670 onwards. The land was not really "available" since it was essentially stolen from the indigenous nations living upon it, but such is the history of Canada. This rich, powerful British firm, self=proclaimed as "The Company of Adventurers" built itself on the backs of indigenous labour. The film was, in fact, meant to be a glorified advertisement for the company to inspire sales and settlement of lands the Canadian Government essentially stole to grant to a major corporation. (Again, not much has changed in Canada on that front.)

There was, however, another theft looming - aesthetic thievery of the HBC's film which, unlike the eventual thief, at least went out of its way to present title cards in the Inuit language.

The result of HBC's efforts was The Romance of the Far Fur Country, a groundbreaking motion picture which was comprised of footage Wyckoff and an assistant shot during a perilous, arduous journey years before Robert Flaherty would shoot and release Nanook of the North (often considered the first documentary of its kind, but actually pre-dated by Wyckoff's film). In fact, Wyckoff's shooting techniques were so ahead of their time that Flaherty pretty much ripped many of them off for his much more famous and somewhat spurious "document" of "Eskimos". Even though Wyckoff's film is fraught with numerous instances of ethnocentrism and stereotyping, he genuinely sought to capture life as he saw it and, unlike Flaherty he did not overtly manipulate footage to tell the story he wanted to tell, but utilized techniques of cinema that he was experimenting with to capture narratives that were unfolding naturally.

In 1920, the HBC presented Wyckoff's stunning images, captured in sub-zero conditions on nitrate film stock and early, primitive (by today's standards) cameras. The movie was released throughout Canada in major centres, often accompanied by a full orchestra. Sadly, Flaherty's film stole all the thunder a couple of years later. As the Hudson's Bay Company shifted their focus from the fur trade to a huge chain of department stores, Wyckoff's film was lost to the sands of time. Over twenty reels of original film were shoved into Britain's National Film Archives (eventually the British Film Institute) who wisely made a protection master of the film, but still kept everything buried in the vaults.

Nikkel, however, has found a fascinating way to honour both Wyckoff and the indigenous peoples who lived as they were captured on film. Following Wyckoff's trail as closely as possible, Nikkel recreates footage, shoots in the same locations and most importantly, brings footage of Wyckoff's film to screen for all the contemporary children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of those captured in the pioneering filmmaker's lens.

Watching real people who, for the first time in their lives are seeing images of their ancestors is deeply and profoundly moving, as are the comments of young contemporary Native peoples describing the exploitation, colonization and assimilation forced upon the forefathers and how the wilful theft on the part of the Canadian Government, their lies and deceit, continue to this very day.

Nikkel has made a very engaging and important work. I do wish the musical score had not felt so stereotypically spare in that way documentaries even now fall back on and though Nikkel's narration is superbly written and rendered, I do also wish the voiceovers of Wyckoff's letters and journals had been presented in a much-less hammy fashion than they are here. These are, finally, minor quibbles. Nikkel's film is a vital document which captures historical, anthropological and aesthetic details which shed light upon a period of Canada's history that is, in the overall scheme of things, so close and yet, so far away.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half Stars

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country is currently playing in specialty venues, including the mini-festival "DOCUMENTING THE ART OF EXPLORATION VII" presented by The Arts & Letters Club of Toronto and The Explorers Club of Canada on March 28, 2015. The film is released via The Winnipeg Film Group.

*****

That Guy Dick Miller (2014)
Dir. Elijah Drenner
Starring: Dick Miller, Roger Corman, Francis Doel, Joe Dante, John Sayles, Allan Arkush, Mary Woronov, Corey Feldman, Zach Galligan, Lainie Miller, Belinda Balaski, Gilbert Adler, Tina Hirsch, Ernest Dickerson, Jonathan Haze, Larry Karaszewski, Julie Corman, Fred Dekker, Steve Carver, David Del Valle, William Sadler, Robert Forster, Jonathan Kaplan, Jack Hill, Adam Rifkin, Fred Olen Ray, Chris Walas,

Review By Greg Klymkiw

He's been in over 200 movies.

His career has lasted over 60 years.

We all know who him.

He's "that guy".

You know, when you're watching The Terminator and Schwarzenegger visits the gun shop, who's behind the counter? "That guy." Then there's the wiseacre, know-it-all owner of the occult bookstore in The Howling who chews out the legendary "Famous Monsters of Filmland" publisher Forrest J. Ackerman for browsing, but also provides a wealth of knowledge about lycanthropy. Again, it's "That Guy". And, of course, there isn't a kid alive who doesn't know the legendary character of Murray Futterman from Gremlins, but most of them don't know his name. He's simply "that guy" whom they seen in everything.

This is a supremely entertaining and good-natured documentary portrait of a genuinely great character actor whose arrival was signalled in early and immortal roles in two classic 60s Roger Corman pictures, first as Walter Paisley, the nebbish "artist" in Bucket of Blood and the hilarious flower gourmet who brings his own salt shaker to add flavour to the petals he devours in the Little Shop of Horrors.

As the title of the doc clearly states, he's "That Guy Dick Miller".

The film is a who's who parade of the best, brightest and greatest genre filmmakers and actors, all extolling Miller's virtues, sharing great behind the scenes adventures and telling a whole whack of personal stories. And there's Miller himself - amiable, intelligent, sharp and funny - a real mensch among mensches.

He's accompanied by his longtime, still gorgeous and sexy wife Lainie Miller (you might remember her as the stripper who catches Dustin Hoffman's eye in The Graduate). She loves him to death and the feeling is clearly mutual. One of the film's highlights is seeing this absolutely perfect couple in their august years, interacting with each other as if they'd met only yesterday.

It's a fun and informative picture which not only sheds light on Dick Miller, the man, but also serves as a fascinating history of six decades of cinema. So load up on some soda pop, beer and lightly salted flowers, sit back, relax and enjoy the delightful film-clip-packed ride with one of the most important, vital forces in American Cinema.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3 Stars

That Guy Dick Miller is currently playing at the MLT Carlton Cinemas in Toronto via Indiecan Entertainment.

THE NIGHT PORTER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic NAZI S&M on Criterion BD&DVD

The Criterion Collection's
BluRay Special Edition
is quite the treat!!!

The Night Porter (1974)
Dir. Liliana Cavani
Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Liliana Cavani's 1974 depiction of the post-war resumption of a violent sadomasochistic relationship between a former S.S. officer (the prim, grim, perversely dashing Dirk Bogarde) and a concentration camp survivor (an icily sensual, waif-like Charlotte Rampling, alternating twixt childlike pleading and a grinning, thin-lipped malevolence), is one of a mere handful of pictures to inspire genuine revulsion amongst critics and audiences (both upon its initial release and even to this day).

Dirk eyes Charlotte's open sore.
The fun is only beginning.

On the surface, this is certainly not hard to understand since an easy reading and response to the disturbing and sickening subject matter is the sort which prompts immediate, knee-jerk cries (from the mostly clueless) of wholesale condemnation, if not outright dismissal. Understanding that so many scribes and viewers automatically filed the film into a folder marked Nazi Sex Pornography is one thing, accepting it is quite another.

DIRK BOGARDE as MAX
TORMENTER? LOVER? Maybe both.

The genuine horrors of war and totalitarianism are hard enough to fathom, but I suspect an even greater understanding of mankind's propensity for evil and cruelty can only really be examined and assessed properly within the context of art that eschews any sense of propriety which far too many cud-chewers expect, even when the subject is horrific as it is here. If anything, the bravery of filmmaker Liliana Cavani and stars Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling must be regarded, not with disdain and derision, but with meritorious acclaim and the most fervent and passionate defence if one is to truly regard art as both a reflection of mankind, but also a microscope under which all aspects of humanity are placed upon a slide for our eyes to consider close up and in gut-wrenching detail.

Concentration Camp Dentistry

Cavani has made a film that refuses to flinch from the horror of Nazi Germany and how its influence was so deep-seeded that the after-effects seem identical, if not more insidious than what unravelled in the first place. This is a film that's impossible to accept in one sitting. There's nothing that's easily digestible and quite possibly, never will be.

The culpability of MADNESS

Then again, the vile reality of Nazism and other forms of national policies built on the foundations of hatred and repression are themselves not the sort of thing anyone wants to assimilate in order to understand the deep degrees of horror in which, humanity as a whole has been cattle-branded with a kind of culpability in the madness, so that our own shame is the tool by which to erase the potential of it ever happening again.

Clearly not a garden variety
hotel night-desk clerk

And yet, even as I write this, the madness of totalitarianism continues in various forms and to varying degrees the world over. As such, Cavani's film holds a place of even greater importance now and for the future than even its makers hoped for upon its first release. The Night Porter, as revolting as it is, must be seen and must be regarded seriously.

The events of the film are simple enough to summarize. It's 1957. Max (Bogarde) works as a night porter in a swanky Vienna hotel. Quiet, efficient and officious, he tends to the needs of the guests with an almost slavish fastidiousness. No request is too tall an order. He even matter-of-factly pimps out a stud bellboy to service a decadent, mildly repulsive old countess who requires a hunky bedfellow to keep her warm on cold, lonely nights.

Max is a former S.S. officer whose duty included the medical "welfare" of prisoners in a concentration camp. He belongs to a secret society of prominent Nazi war criminals who are devoted to eliminating any potential witnesses that could bring them down for their heinous activities. Most of the men seek the sort of exoneration that will restore them to elite positions in German society. Max has goals that are far less lofty. He wishes to toil in obscurity as the hotel's night porter, earning a modest living whilst at the same time, commanding a respect, albeit meagre, within the confines of his tiny little world.

Charlotte Rampling as Lucia

One fateful night, he comes face-to-face with Lucia (Rampling), the wife of a famous American symphony conductor staying in the posh hotel. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that Max took a special liking to Lucia when, as the daughter of a prominent socialist, she was incarcerated in the concentration camp he was stationed in. To survive, Lucia succumbed to Max's sexual desires of the sadomasochistic variety, but as the years crept on, their relationship developed into a perverse co-dependence which, under the circumstances seemed to go bove and beyond a mere one-sided and exploitative relationship, but one of mutual desires.

CONCENTRATION CAMP
CABARET COSTUME

Now, years later, Max and Lucia pick up their torrid passions where they left off and soon, they're embroiled in a heated relationship. Unfortunately, Max's Nazi colleagues don't take too well to this. The secret society demands that all witnesses be "taken care of". With the murderous Nazis keeping close watch on his every move, Max locks Lucia alone with him in his tiny flat and their relationship of sadomasochism reaches even more intense heights. As it does, the reality of leaving the apartment could mean death for both of them. The couple are now on a strangely even keel as they're both prisoners. Once the rationed food in the apartment is gone, the couple starve to a point of emaciation and soon realize what must be done. Max dons his S.S. uniform and Lucia, the sexy shimmering garb she was adorned with in the concentration camp. Together, they leave the apartment to face whatever fate holds in store for them.

With this relatively simple narrative, Cavani carves out deeply complex thematic, dramatic and emotional levels which are, to be sure, provocative, but transcend that of being strictly prurient. Rituals of the most pure, yet clearly demented kind represent the sick entitlement of the Nazis, but also their desires to infuse life in the camp with fragments of cultural expression which provide some semblance of familiarity to life before the madness of WWII. We not only follow the juxtaposed then and now relationship of sadomasochism between Max and Lucia, but Cavani emphasizes ritual even in the day-to-day existence of the S.S. with flashbacks to cabaret-styled entertainment (featuring Lucia as a topless chanteuse adorned in trousers, suspenders and S.S. hat) and even the performance of a ballet featuring a near-naked male dancer displaying his prowess as an artist whilst also offering up the spectacle of his gorgeously-sculpted body for the edification of the Nazi officers.

Yes, even the S.S. appreciated lithe male dancers.

The dancer even appears at Max's hotel to perform in the privacy of an empty hotel room for Max. The dancer must continue offering up his body on display long after the war has ended, just as Lucia must fill the gaps created in her "normal" life by reigniting sadomasochism with the man who was once her captor. With Lucia in particular, her need to continue with the exploitation of her body and soul after the war, is as much an extension of the prisoner mentality pounded into her by her former incarceration, as it is a type of empowerment by turning her former captor into a slave, or prisoner who can only be truly fulfilled by Lucia's command over him on a sexual level.

The repugnance of this is surely what caused critics and audiences to emit bilious condemnation of The Night Porter, but in fact is the very thing that rubs their noses in the notion of complicity in such evils. The exploitative elements of the Nazi aesthetic being tied into sexual gratification works on two levels - that of the participation in said activities by characters in the film and the movie's contemporary audience who are forced to participate in sexual dominance and subjugation, albeit that which is clearly reversed, at least initially, in Lucia's favour.

That captor and prisoner, both become prisoners of latent desires brought to the fore by the evils of war and its lingering influence in peacetime. This is surely hard to accept, but accept we must if we're to become open to the true and genuine horrors of war.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** Five-Stars

The Night Porter is currently available in a brand new 2K transfer on both Blu-Ray and DVD formats in a sumptuous new home entertainment offering from the Criterion Collection. Included on the disc are several important extra features: an all-new interview with director Cavani which offers a wealth of illumination upon the production and thematic concerns of the film, a gorgeous booklet that includes an essay by scholar Gaetana Marrone plus a 1975 interview with Cavani. The real gem of the package is the inclusion of Women of the Resistance a fifty-minute 1965 documentary by Cavani which focuses upon female partisans who survived the German invasion of Italy.

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY The Night Porter - HERE!

In Canada - BUY The Night Porter HERE, eh!

In UK BUY The Night Porter HERE

THE CONFORMIST - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Bertolucci Dazzles: Deluxe KinoLorber BluRay

Emptiness
Interruptus

The Conformist (1970)
Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You're never going to see a more gorgeous movie about fascism than Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist.

He was only in his late 20s when he made this 1970 adaptation of Alberto Moravia's novel and the picture still crackles with urgency, dread and horror. It's furthermore infused with a winning combination of political/historical smarts, deeply considered intellectual rigour and an eye for heart-aching, stunning and dazzling visual artistry.

Working with ace cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), there isn't a single composition, lighting scheme or camera move in the entire photoplay that's anything less than gorgeous. The sheer physical beauty in interior decor, architecture and the natural world is an effective and complex juxtaposition within the story of a man driven by pure ambition.

Ambitious or not, though, the main character Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) seems completely without a bone of real genuine passion in his body and is certainly bereft of such in his soul. His notions of passion seem rooted in a false construct of what he believes to be truly rapturous. He believes he must marry and "love" Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) because she herself is a lovely, politically clueless member of his "class" and as such, is going to be an ideal appendage to him as he attempts to scale the heights within the government of Italian totalitarian leader Benito Mussolini.

Working as a secret field operative for the secret police, Marcello's ambition is the kind of petty, small-minded desire for advancement that would plague any loathsomely tweedy bureaucrat in public or private life and bravely, That said, Jean-Louis Trintignant is Jean-Louis Trintignant, and as such, is always cool, no matter how big a scumbag he's playing and Bertolucci's screenplay and direction, by way of Moravia's novel, works overtime to transform Trintignant into a character who is totally and pathetically bereft of an inner life. The first big job Marcello happily accepts is to ingratiate himself upon a former university philosophy professor, one whom he was especially fond of as a youth, and set the old anti-fascist up for a political assassination.

Adding insult to injury (in terms of presenting a character seemingly bereft of any positive warmth or humanity), we learn that Marcello is a young man who comes from considerable money and breeding, yet his impetus always seems to hover at the lowest rung of the ladder of the bourgeoisie. That both Bertolucci and Trintignant manage to create a character that we're always on the verge of wanting to admire and/or root for is a testament to both men's gifts as director and actor respectively since Marcello is a preeminent symbol of shallow desires.

Bertolucci structures the story so that timelines are often blended twixt flashbacks, flash forwards and a current perspective. None of this is flashy, trick-pony nonsense, nor even confusing, but is, in fact, a canny way to keep us on our toes in terms of both the advancement of narrative as well as the slow, almost creepy crawly dread that infiltrates our own perspective upon Marcello's gradual descent which, is the very thing that reaches a nadir even within Marcello so that he begins to question both his motives and the morality of his actions.

The trappings of class masking the horrors of Fascism

It is, in fact, love - real passion - which consumes Marcello. He doesn't even appear to have much passion for fascism, all that drives him is petty ambition, something he eventually realizes when he begins to fall madly in love with his old professor's wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis fame), a stunningly ethereal beauty. Granted, it's her gossamer physical seductiveness that first attracts him rather than her intellect and inner life, which is virtually parallel to the aesthetically sumptuous trappings of upper class Italian society masking the evils of fascism.

Anna's beauty masks her inner life

Class, or at least the perceptions of class, clearly affect the carefully planted flashback of a much younger Marcello killing a family chauffeur who attempts to rape him. We even begin to doubt the perceived sexual exploitation between domestic "help" and the young man of means. It seems real enough, and perhaps even Marcello's murderous actions are justified, but Bertolucci plants enough doubt in our minds so that we respond to Marcello as someone swayed, if not exploited by class and perceptions of class, as opposed to any malevolence inherent in the chauffeur's attraction to him.

Even more powerful is the strange sense of redemption the film appears to work its way towards. When events converge to a point in the narrative when all seems dire, deeply sickening and outright horrific during the film's harrowing climax, it's finally not love which affects Marcello, but rather, recognizing a deep, real and eternal love within two other people. This is finally so profoundly moving that one can't help but shudder over a reality that could, given the circumstances, overtake any of us.

The Conformist finally leaves you completely winded. A film that presents a central figure who allows fascism to suck him dry of humanity is indeed the true horror Bertolucci lays bare for us to contemplate and feel. It's also what contributes to the picture's inherent qualities as a genuine masterpiece. Its exploration of fascism is ultimately as deeply felt and relevant today as it was when Bertolucci first made the film. We connect as individuals living in our own version of a totalitarian state masked as democracy and what finally moves us is following the inevitability of character who could well be any of us - No! Is us! Now and forever.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

The Conformist is available on a gorgeously transferred Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber (Raro Video) which includes Adriano Aprá's illuminating one-hour documentary In the Shade of the Conformist. In Canada, VSC (Video Services Corp.) distributes this Kino Lorber/ Raro Video title.

UNDER THE SUN OF ROME - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Editing soars in neorealist film

In Italian neo-realism, beautiful women looking for romance have slim pickings amongst layabout man-boys who never want to grow up.

Gorgeous neorealist film
begs for proper treatment
from either Criterion or
Kino Lorber. Who will step
up to the plate first?

Under the Sun of Rome
Sotto il sole di Roma (1948)
dir. Renato Castellani
Starring: Oscar Blando, Liliana Mancini, Francesco Golisari, Maria Tozzi, Ferrucio Tozzi, Gisella Monaldi, Alberto Sordi

Review By Greg Klymkiw

At one point in Renato Castellani’s strange neorealist comedy-drama Under the Sun of Rome, the layabout teen hero Ciro (Oscar Blando) and his hard-working beat cop Dad (Ferrucio Tozzi) are sleeping not-so-soundly during the day for very different reasons.

Ciro busily toils day and night doing nothing – save for occasional forays into mischief with his equally lazy pals. Pops, on the other hand, is on perpetual night shift – patrolling the dark streets and punching in tediously at the requisite check-in points. Ciro's only genuine risk is getting caught for petty thievery. Pops, however, is at risk every night, keeping the eternal city as safe as possible.

One works, the other doesn’t – but as the sun of Roma beams through the windows of their tiny walk-up – both men on this particular morning, are getting no sleep. Roly-poly Mamma (Maria Tozzi) is multitasking like only a mother can and berating both of them – at the top of her considerable lungs. In a brief moment of respite from her justifiable haranguing (she works harder than the two of them together – multiplied, no doubt, to infinity), bleary Ciro calls out to his equally groggy Dad asking if ALL married women are like his mother.

Dad sighs with resignation and replies, “All.”

Ah, the eternal chasm twixt man and woman.

Luckily, for the not-so-gentle sex, they always have each other.

Under the Sun of Rome unfolds its episodic coming-of-age tale during World War II, but for a good portion of the picture, we’d never know it. Ciro and his buddies busy themselves with the fine rituals of doing nothing. Our hunky hero, adorned in a sporty new pair of white shoes and to-die-for shorts that outline the supple form of his delectable posterior and swarthy gams – Yes, GAMS! They’re that gorgeous – is supposed to be getting a presentable haircut for his new job.

Ciro has other plans. He rounds up his buddies for a day of slacking. Wandering through the crumbling Coliseum they come across Geppe (Francesco Golisari) a lad of the streets who makes his home there. Ciro and Geppe hit it off immediately and the new pal joins the layabouts for a dip in a secluded creek on railway property.

When rail company bulls show up to intimidate trespassers, Ciro loses his new shoes and the money Mamma gave him for a haircut. Nor has he bothered to go to work as promised. Terrified with the severe beating he’ll receive, Ciro does what any young lad would do – he doesn’t go home and instead, spends the night with Geppe in his magical little Coliseum hideaway.

This affords both young dreamboats the opportunity to gaze intently at each other’s fresh, lean man-boy perfection – replete with gentle digital gesticulations. Here Castellani directs veteran cinematographer Domenico (Ossessione) Scala’s camera in loving compositional directions to highlight the bountiful facial and physical attributes of both actors. (Larry Clark – eat your heart out.)

As time moves on, the picture recounts several entertaining incidents in the life of Ciro – stealing shoes from a shopkeeper (the great Alberto Sordi of The White Sheik and I Vitelloni fame), an on-again-off-again relationship with Iris (Liliana Mancini) the proverbial girl-next-door, dabbling in black marketeering once the German army enters Rome, dallying gigolo-like with the BBW-splendour of Tosca (Gisella Monaldi) a married-woman-cum-streetwalker and eventually crime that leads to the expected tragic ending.

Castellani’s storytelling technique and, in fact elements of the story itself, are delicately, delightfully odd.

The first-person narration is truly exceptional. It is both literary AND literal. Often the voiceover will describe a physical action just before or during its execution as well as describing characters whom we see as described during said descriptions. Further to this, we will often hear narration to the effect of “So-and-so said…” and we’ll then hear the character recite the line of dialogue. The basic tenets of Screenwriting 101 suggest you should NEVER do any of the above. This, of course, is why the self-appointed scenarist gurus the world over are so often wrong. If it works, it works and it does so splendidly here.

Some might find fault with Castellani’s perspective on his female characters. It's certainly not as deep and sensitive as it could and should be. Even in I Vitelloni, the pinnacle of all male layabout films, Maestro Fellini is able to render strong female characters without turning them into borderline harridans as Castellani does with Mamma or worse, Iris – a harridan-to-be. (The performances of the actresses are as good as can be expected within the shallow dimensions they’re given to work with.)

Strangely, the female character that seems the most well rounded and lavished with the greatest degree of sensitivity is that of the plump, whorish Tosca. Even Scala’s cinematography of the women is mostly workmanlike, lacking the loving detail and care so copiously drenched upon the young boys. One could argue this is intentional, but to that I say – argue away. Larry Clark rests MY case on this one – boys AND gals need equal cinematographic love. (In fairness though, there is ONE boner-inducing close-up of Liliana Mancini slowly opening the door.)

Blando’s performance as Ciro is infused with a variety of subtle layers. When he is at his most rakishly appealing, Ciro is a character we’re completely rooting for, but often he does and says things so abominable (for example, the way he continually professes love to Iris, kisses her passionately then hurls some invective that clearly hurts her feelings) that we turn on him violently. Ciro is an always fascinating character. His eventual coming-of-age, his redemption if you will, has considerable force. I also applaud Castellani’s brave choice in making such a bold series of moves within a leading character.

What I love most about this picture is the craft employed in the forward thrust of its episodic narrative. The movie never feels like it’s overstaying its welcome at any point and yet, very often, it has a rhythm not unlike that of a lazy day and as such, is easily in the same sphere attained by Fellini in I Vitelloni. In fact, the slicing and dicing of editor Giuliano Betti is not only exceptional, but at times it is utterly breathtaking. Among many spectacular cuts, the one that stays with me is a gorgeous cut to a foot-level shot on the stairs in the walk-up when Ciro and Iris go into the hallway from his flat. Not only is this a cut of exquisite beauty, but also it leads us into a shot that is equally stunning (followed by a camera move that’s richly evocative and romantic).

Many of the cuts are suitably "silent", but only when they need to be. On occasion they knock you completely on your ass and force you to almost re-focus your gaze IN to the action on screen.

I have to sadly admit to having seen only one Castellani picture before (a weird English-dubbed public domain VHS tape of Hell in the City during the mid-80s - issued I think, to capitalize on Chained Heat and other babe-in-prison flicks starring Linda Blair and rented pour moi to satisfy my babe-in-prison fetish. Because of my Castellani-deprived state, I couldn't begin to claim that these cuts are a trademark DIRECTORIAL style of his and assume they were made in collaboration with a brilliant editor. The credited editor is one Giuliano Betti. I have scoured the Internet quite extensively - including Italian sites, and found virtually no information about him. In fact, this appears to be his only editing credit (along with a bunch of assistant directing and continuity credits). Go figure. Whoever was responsible is a genius.

Under the Sun of Rome is a tremendously entertaining picture and even if it occasionally feels like a Diet Chinotto precursor to Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni, it’s a worthy entry in the Italian neorealist sweepstakes - especially in the oft-tackled men-who-can't-seem-to-grow-up genre.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Under the Sun of Rome does not appear to be available on DVD other than as a non-subtitled Italian import. This must change. It sounds like a job for either Criterion or Kino Lorber. In the meantime, a gorgeous archival 35mm English-subtitled print pops up at cinematheques that can still screen real movies. TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto did, indeed, present this film a few years back. I, for one, would LOVE to own it on Blu=Ray. Criterion? Kino Lorber? Art thou listening?

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