Reviews

I think this movie is really, really good.

I watched it today for the second time, after four years since I first saw it. I didn't remember how the movie ended, making it worthwhile seeing it again.

I read the comments available here, and I realized that the people criticizing the movie do it mostly because of the movie's ending. These people claim that the ending was dull, that the way the assassin confesses his crime is too 'casual', and that the reason behind the murder isn't strong enough.

I do believe that these people didn't fully understand the movie, so I thought it was a good idea to explain my interpretation. The reason leading me to this conclusion is that the clues allowing one to put all the pieces of the puzzle together are quite subtle, and they might be harder to catch for people that aren't fluent in Italian, and that had to read the subtitles to understand them.

First important, and perhaps neglected, fact: Anna (the girl that was killed) witnessed how Angelo (the sick toddler) died. She was walking outside their house, and alerted (most likely) by Angelo's screams, she stormed into the kitchen trying to help the baby that was chocking on something that got stuck in his throat. Anna frantically called an ambulance asking for help, while the parents did nothing to save Angelo. They are guilty of letting it happen, which is both a crime and a painful memory for the two of them. Back then Anna was still unaware of her cancer.

Second: Anna eventually discovered that she was terminally ill, and wrote on her diary that she was feeling worse and worse as the days went by.

Third: Anna didn't fight back when she was assaulted by the lake. This suggests that she let herself die, an interpretation that is also given by the doctor commenting on the autopsy's results. He also hints at the fact that she could have had an agreement with the assassin.

So, with these pieces of information, my interpretation goes as follows.

Anna doesn't want to live anymore, she wants to die before her cancer will make her life unbearable. However, she doesn't want to commit suicide, because she knows that it would cause a terrible pain on her loved ones. She cannot ask her boyfriend either, because he is crazy in love with her, and would never help her to end her life.

She needs someone with a motive to kill her, so she starts behaving in such a way that will lead someone to indeed do it. The only person that could be driven to such an extreme action is Corrado, Angelo's father. She starts threatening him, with a carefully crafted sequence of moves. She calls him more and more often, she demands to see him constantly, reminding him that she will tell the police how things really went the day Angelo died. Eventually Corrado snaps and chokes her to death. This not only allows Anna to end her suffering, but also to take vengeance for Angelo's death, whom she loved dearly.

At first the murderer claims that he killed Anna because they were lovers but she became obsessed by their relationship, driving him insane. Obviously, this is a lie, and it was told to cover up what really happened the day Angelo died.

Maybe Angelo didn't swallow properly his food, and his father failed to save him from chocking because this was finally a way out of that nightmare. Or maybe his father intentionally gave him food that was too big to swallow for Angelo to choke. We'll never know this part of the story, as Chiara (Angelo's mother) states that she'll never say what Corrado was screaming that morning. And we'll never know for sure what really happened by the lake, whether Corrado killed Anna because she asked him to, making him understand that this was the only way for him not to be accused of his son's death, or because he snapped and assaulted her violently.

I do think that this movie is way more subtle than one might realize. And, apart from the sophisticated murder's plot, there are many other reasons that make it a gem: the amazing performances by both Servillo and Golino, the inspector's complex relationship with his daughter, which is constantly put under scrutiny with the comparisons drawn from Anna's experience, his wife's struggle with Alzheimer, the somewhat chaotic process of trial and error that the inspector has to face, with many false leads that constantly throw him in the wrong direction, and finally the very honest description of ordinary people, that seem good people with normal lives on the surface, but that deep down have many things to hide and undisclosed problems to face.

I have no clue how some other people that left a comment could compare it to Antonioni or Bunuel's dreamlike masterpieces.

The critique to the wild capitalism rampant in the former USSR, although now relevant more than ever, sounds trite.

The difficulties of communicating in a couple and keeping a relationship alive are analyzed without any depth or insight.

I understand that corruption in modern Russia and in the Baltic region is a serious problem, but the way the lack of justice is portrayed in the movie, with the attempt of being an upstanding citizen that backfires and leads to trouble, is very cheap.

But I must say that I liked two things:

• the devastated Church scene was quite beautiful, both visually and in terms of its message (the age of religion is gone, and only empty spaces are left, both because people left distracted by their search for material success and because of the "looting" that has taken place by the media, the political and cultural leaders.)

• when the main character runs to the young girl in a jogging outfit, with the tags still on (meaning that although he tried to put "a new suit" on, his change was just on the outside, it was superficial.)

Quite possibly what we are living (or what the former USSR is experiencing) is not the Golden age. But then, Are we really sure we are no longer capable of doing good? Are we really sure that we are so busy with ourselves that we don't even recognize that we are eating alive our loved ones (the new lover) and killing what they the cherish most (the dog)?

To conclude: this is a very pretentious movie, that was designed to look like art and to be provocative, without a genuine and honest message. In my opinion, the emperor is naked, and the director failed miserably.

I'm a big fan of Sorrentino's work, and I was curious to see his attempt with a bigger production, surrounded by "big shots".

I must say that I found the movie very disappointing.

1) It tries to hard to get the status of "cult" movie, by using artsy shots, a self-indulgent camera-work, and catchy lines. Quite a few times you are left wondering what the heck a scene is trying to convey (e.g., the lift to the American Indian, or the heavily tattooed guy at the bar, the truck's self-combustion). My feeling was that those additional characters and incidents add nothing, apart from trying to make you think that you are watching something "special".

2) The characters do not come across as "natural". They all seem a parody. I do like Frances McDormand. I think she is a terrific actress. But her role did not have any depth, and felt out of place in several occasions (why is she a firefighter?).

3) The whole Dublin-U.S.-Dublin trip is not believable. It's too surreal, the initial motivation behind it in particular.

The ending scene is kind of touching, though.

Do yourselves a favor: don't watch the movie and read the book instead.

I read the book a couple of years ago, which I liked a lot. I was curious to see the movie rendition, even though I had a bad feeling: the IMDb score was kind of a red flag.

I have quite a few problems with the movie:

1) It changed several aspects of the book, some of which are fundamental. Above all, the ending. In the movie conveys a very different (and more crowd pleasing) message, which contradicts the essence of the title.

2) It does not propose a linear development of the story, making up a bunch of flashbacks and previews, which I found very confusing. Figuring out what happened to the main characters, and their families, will prove even more challenging for a person that hasn't read the book.

3) It does not develop some major themes, such as Alice's mother passing away, or the intense, deep and unique bond that the two outcasts (Mattia and Alice) share is just touched upon, to name a few.

4) The soundtrack is simply terrible. Apparently, it was taken from another movie, possibly to pay tribute to (emulate?) Tarantino. It's way too much "in your face". It does not complement the movie, being too invasive and too "loud".

5) The horror interpretation might be original and bold. However, sometimes by being bold things can go horribly wrong. Which I think was the case here. With the horror approach, one can be partially insulated from the tragedies and the emotional nightmares that the main characters face and go through. Maybe this was a way to decrease the high expectations that were surrounding this production, as the book was a best-seller in Italy.

The culprit of this failed attempt must be the director, as most actors do a fine job. Alba Rohrwacher delivers (as usual) a great performance. And I did like the mean Viola played by Aurora Ruffino. Filippo Timi, instead, overdoes it in a small cameo.

I really hope my memory will be able to erase the scenes that I've just seen (a-la "spotless mind"...), restoring what my imagination came up with while reading the excellent book.

*** Contains Spoilers ***

I did not like this movie at all.

I found it amazingly boring and rather superficially made, irrespective of the importance and depth of the proposed themes: given that eventually we have to die, how should we approach life? In a "light" way, like Tomas; in a "heavy" way like Tereza; or should we find ways not to face that question, like Sabina? How much is fidelity important in a relationship? How much of the professional life can be mutilated for the sake of our loved ones? How much do we have to be involved in the political life and the social issues of our Country?

Unfortunately, I haven't read Kundera's novel but after having being let down by the movie I certainly will: I want to understand if the story was ruined by the movie adaptation (which is my guess) or if it was dull from the beginning.

I disagree with most of the positive comments that defined the movie as a masterpiece. I simply don't see the reasons why. What I see are many flaws, and a sample of them follows.

1) The three main characters are thrown at you and it's very hard to understand what drives them when making their choices.

2) The "secondary" characters are there just to fill the gaps but they don't add nothing to the story and you wonder if they are really necessary.

3) I did not like how Tomas was impersonated. Nothing is good for him. He is so self-centered and selfish. He is not human, in some sense. But when his self-confidence fails and he realizes that he depends on others and is emotionally linked to someone, I did not find the interpretation credible.

4) It's very unlikely that an artist like Sabina could afford her lifestyle in a communist country in 1968. On top of that, the three main characters are all very successful in their respective professions, which sounds strange to me. a) how can Tereza become effortlessly such a good photographer? b) how can they do so well in a country lacking all the economic incentives that usually motivate people to succeed?

5) The fake accents of the English spoken by the actors are laughable. And I am not even mother tongue. Moreover, the letter that Sabina receives while in the US is written in Czech, which I found very inconsistent.

6) Many comments praised the movie saying that Prague was beautifully rendered: I guess that most of the movie was shot on location, so it's not difficult to give the movie a Eastern European feeling, and given the intrinsic beauty of Prague is not even difficult to make it look good.

7) I found the ending sort of trivial. Tereza and Tomas, finally happy in the countryside, far away from the temptations of the "metropoly", distant from the social struggles their fellow citizens are living, detached from their professional lives, die in a car accident. But they die after having realized that they are happy, indeed. So what? Had they died unhappy, would the message of the movie have been different? I don't think so. I considered it sort of a cheap trick to please the audience.

8) The only thing in the movie which is unbearably light is the way the director has portrayed the characters. You see them for almost three hours, but in the end you are left with nothing. You don't feel empathy, you don't relate to them, you are left there in your couch watching a sequence of events and scenes that have very little to say.

9) I hated the "stop the music in the restaurant" scene (which some comments praised a lot). Why Sabina has got such a strong reaction? Why Franz agrees with her? I really don't see the point. The only thing you learn is that Sabina has got a very bad temper and quite a strong personality. That's it. What's so special and unique about it?

After all these negative comments, let me point tout that there are two scenes that I liked a lot (that's why I gave it a two).

The "Naked women Photoshoot", where the envy, the jealousy, and the insecurities of Sabina and Tereza are beautifully presented.

The other scene is the one representing the investigations after the occupation of Prague by the Russians. Tereza pictures, taken to let the world know about what is going on in Prague, are used to identify the people taking part to the riots. I found it quite original and Tereza's sense of despair and guilt are nicely portrayed.

Finally, there is a tiny possibility that the movie was intentionally "designed" in such a way that "Tomas types" are going to like it and "Tereza ones" are going to hate it. If this is the case (I strongly doubt it, though) then my comment should be revised drastically.