Mittel Cinema Fest 2014 - Five Days of Italian Cinema in Prague
A program of modern Italian cinema films from the previous year was presented over the course of five days at the Kino Lucerna in Prague. CineCola watched all of the films, unfortunately aside from one - Anime Nere (Black Souls) by Francesco Munzi. The programme sought to present the cinematic eye on modern Italian cinema society, and also allowed Italian filmmakers to present their new works in front of a foreign audience. The Mittel Cinema Fest in Prague enjoyed great success, a great audience turn out from members of the Italian community residing in Prague but also the local Czech community and plenty of expats from different parts of the world.
A group of intellectuals and university graduates struggling to find work decide to earn a living by producing and selling a 'technically legal' drug. An impressive feature debut by helmer Sydney Sibilla, who fully embraces and re-discovers the Commedia all'Italiana format and narrative structures that sees likeable, good natured characters that descend into a world of crime due to social marginalisation and financial neglect. Born out of an irrevocable feeling of frustration due to the hardships of modern Italy's socio-political frustration, I Can Quit Whenever I Want is an intelligent satire characterised by cleverness and an impressive sense of humour that includes some true laugh out loud moments. Its entertainment value is also covneyed by a good pace and rhythm that pervents it from moments of dullness, while the screenplay has enough bite to make some compelling observations on the lack of opportunity offered to young adults in Italy.
Two ethically opposed brothers, one a doctor and the other a lawyer, are forced to ponder on their own morality after their kids unleash a random vicious attack on a homeless woman and are caught on CCTV. The Dinner kicks off with greatly thrilling heart stopping introduction, but after the opening credits, De Matteo switches the intensity of the film to a more intimate and psychological one, with the pace of the film slowing down considerably to allow for a more open interaction with the audience on the compelling and thought provoking matters of morality that The Dinner raises. This approach is truly effective and only occasionally leads to moments of dullness that never really compromise the dramatic charge of the film. Furthermore, the power of the film is intensified by the performances provided by some of the biggest and most respected names in modern Italian cinema, and are particularly well represented by Alessandro Gassman and Ivano De Matteo, perfectly cast in their ethically opposed roles.
In Human Capital by Paolo Virzi, the destinies of two families from Northern Italy, one extremely wealthy and the other perfectly well off, criss cross and are tainted by greed, carelessness, coldness, selfishness and by an event that involved a cyclist being hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve. The filmmaker chooses to employ the litarary tryptych structure and revisits the span of a period of time seeing the development of the narrative arch from three different viewpoint. An ambitious yet tricky choice that inevitably causes some dispairity in the overall appeal and power of the concept as a whole - in other words, not all the parts of the film are alike in quality. The purposely placed lack of fully likeable characters - aside perhaps from the clueless and benevolent Robert portrayed by Valeria Golino who mostly remains marginal to the core of the film - is effective in revisiting the anti-hero formula, and it is admirable how despite the challenges posed by the structural approach the film is kept together and never faulters, making some good criticism on the imperfection of humanity, human morality its self-destructive nature.
THE MAFIA KILLS ONLY IN SUMMER (La Mafia Uccide Solo d'Estate) by Pif
The debut feature of Pierfrancesco Diliberto aka Pif deals with a touchy and delicate subject in Italian cinema, the one of the Mafia. Yet, it does so in a fresh new way and through an intelligent use of the comedy genre as we follow the life of a male, from childhood to young adulthood, whose life in Sicily naturally continues to cross paths with the mafia. And as the film progresses, and we also follow his seemingly hopeless romantic fantasy with a girl named Flora, we also come to realise what a normal part of everyday life the mafia is within the Sicilian setting, and how violence is treates so casually. The Mafia Only Kills in Summer makes a serious subject more accessible to a young audience, and hence all the more inspiring in striking up a serious debate. Furthermore, it chronicles decades worth of history of the fight with the mafia and even references directly the likes of Toto Riina - treated as a comedic sidekick in the main narrative - to Falcone and Borsellino. Considering how the mafia has been treated since the beginning of its cinematic representation, this feels like something completely different and certainly an ambitiously brave and delightfully entertaining film at that. And while the ending may feel a little underwhelming in the wider scope of things, Pif's down to earth approach for his work is truly rewarding.
DARKER THAN MIDNIGHT (Più Buio di Mezzanotte) by Sebastiano Riso
Darker Than Midnight is the story of a 14 year old androgynous boy named Davide who flees from the persecution of his father who fails to accept his homosexuality and takes refuge on the streets of Catania among colourful characters and prostitution. With his debut feature, Riso channels the spirit of Pasolini and allows poetry to come right out of the street. In fact, the film could be described as working off two different and parellel platforms, the realist one and the poetic one, the latter also serving as a metaphor which alters from being enrichingly fascinating to being overtly precious and distracting. There is no denying the magnetic charge of the film, which is largely character driven and works also due to the lead performance by young boy Davide Capone - who was apparently picked after a two year casting process. There is also no denying that the controversial nature of the drama aims to sometime shock the viewer - despite a lack of nudity and a focus on human relationships more than a downright celebration or critique on the decadence of the streets of Catania - in order to make its points of observation on freedom of expression of sexual orientation more than simple LGBT rights. Darker Than Midnight is, by choice and by nature, a film that will split the audience in two, but will always provoke some type of reaction.
QUIET BLISS (In Grazia di Dio) by Edoardo Winspeare
After the family company goes bankrupt, three generations of a family - represented almost exclusively by female characters - is forced to move back to their Southern Italian coastal town. Edoardo Winspeare's Quiet Bliss is a timed and dull experimentation on some techniques from neo-realist filmmakers that simply lacks ideas and is uncertain about whether it wants to be driven by genuineness or give into cinematic structures. The prominence of female characters is meant to symbolise a tribute to the strong will of women, but it is so plain that it feels little more than a mere conglomeration of unoriginal archetypes and seen before narrative elements that are not unlike your average Pedro Almodovar flick. Overall, there is very little that could be of interest as the film lacks enough power to be a strong work of social observation and lacks enough charisma to make us worry or care too much about the characters on screen.