Alicia I love this movie so much

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

SimonJack This is a funny, heart-warming and endearing story. "Il Postino: The Postman" is based on a 1985 novel, "Ardent Patience," by Antonio Skarmeta. The book is a fictional story set in a small fishing village on the Isle of Capri. It takes places during a period in 1952 during which Pablo Neruda was a resident of the village. Neruda was a Chilean poet and communist politician traveling Europe and Asia and living in exile. The house he lived in on Capri was owned by Italian historian Edwin Cerio. The setting and scenery in this film are exquisite. It's an Italian-made movie that has something of an international cast and crew. English director and screenwriter Michael Radford directed the film. All of the cast are superb. The leading male star is Italian comedian and actor Massimo Troisi as the postman, Mario Ruoppolo. The leading male co-star is French actor Philippe Noiret who plays Pablo Neruda. Noiret has a striking physical resemblance to Neruda. Italian Maria Cucinotta plays the main female lead, Beatrice Russo. Anna Bonaiuto plays Matilde. The movie implies that she is Neruda's wife, but in real life at that time, she was his mistress. Neruda's wife was still in Chile where she tried, successfully, to have the arrest warrant against her husband lifted. Matilde would become Neruda's third wife a few years later. The film was released in Italy in September 1994, and in the U.S. in a limited release of June 1995, and then general release in March 1996. It was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1996, including Best Picture, and won the Oscar for Best Music in an original dramatic score. Troisi, who had suffered with heart problems since childhood, died the day after the filming was finished. He was just 41 years old. He received posthumous nominations for Academy Awards as best actor and for best writing based on a previous publication. The main plot of the story is a simple one, in which the hero asks the poet to sign a book so that he can impress the girls in Naples. That soon narrows to wanting to learn to be a poet so that he can woo the girl he loves in the village. A couple of subplots are involved, and the two men soon become friends, like father and son, teacher and pupil. Some of the political life of the time and place enter the picture, and Neruda's communism is something that Mario embraces as well. A documentary short came with my DVD of this film. It has more background on the movie and on the poetry and life of Neruda. Other reviews describe more of the plot. All the sources seem just to touch the edge of Neruda's communism, which was as important to him as was his poetry. Since they give very little on his political background, I thought some viewers might find that interesting. Neruda was writing poetry at the age of 10 and his first book was published when he was just 20 years old, in 1924. "20 Poems of Love and a Song of Despair" established him as romantic poet whose popularity soon spread beyond the realm of Spanish literature. His many other works were about objects, nature and politics, but his largest following was among women and those who enjoyed romantic literature. He soon became an ardent communist and a literary and public speaking champion of communism. He held diplomatic positions for Chile, and served in the Chilean Senate. In 1971, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Neruda was no fan of democracies and he wasn't popular among nations with governments founded as republics. He had praised the Stalin dictatorship of the Soviet Union. He supported the Cuban revolution under Fidel Castro. After Che Guevara, the communist terrorist and guerrilla leader was killed in Bolivia in 1967, Neruda wrote articles that praised him for a life of heroism. And, he loudly denounced the U. S. during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis Of course, of these, only Stalin's dictatorship had happened before the 1952 setting on Capri that this film is about. Still, one would have to wonder how Neruda (and many others) could turn a blind eye to the great depression of 1932-33 in the Soviet Union. Stalin created it to wipe out the peasantry of the Ukraine, and it claimed about nine million lives. But, with the desire of the filmmakers to celebrate poetry with this romantic story, it's understandable that the producers wanted to keep this on a lighter plain. There is a sad note toward the end, but this is a movie that most people should enjoy. Youth audiences of today should be alerted to expect a slower pace than what they have become used to. Here are a couple of my favorite lines from this film. Mario, "Poetry does not belong to those who write it, but to those who need it."Postmaster (Orazio Stracuzzi), "Even the women are interested in politics in Chile."Mario, "I'll only ask him to sign this book. That's all, so when I get paid I'll go to Naples and show all the girls that I'm a friend of Neruda, the poet of love." Postmaster, "The poet of the people."

superdirector007 what a magnificent movie, legendary work by Michael Redford , everything about this movie is beautiful ,,winning Oscar does not come in easy way ,,be it budget,,cinematography covering island's natural beauty ,,specially sea settings ,humourous dialogs with utmost simplicity and realistic performances by actors ,everything is admirable.sometimes you do not plan to make a great movie with highly perfection attitude but movie becomes and gets applauded ,,same happened with this movie,what i believe what is metaphor Mario asks Pablo says-like sky is weeping what does it mean Mario says means to say sky is raining Mario's response it's complicated and Pablo's response that complication does not have to do anything with person's emotionsvery meaningful and soulful dialogs ,that is the reason movie does not become boring end of the movie is very surprising ,it keeps you involve in the movie movie was shot on the island near by Meditteranean sea and every time tides go and again come to touch coastal areas that resembles one excellent scene goes with the hope to come with another lovely scene filled with emotional and heart touching dialogs to touch your heartmovie is pretty simple but can you predict what's gonna happen in next scene ,probably not ,it has certain surprising elementsthis movie is not a movie this is everlasting experience to live with and cherish it

johno-21 I had never seen this film before but recently saw it as part of a library film series. Directed by Michael Radford it earned five Academy award nominations and won Best Original Dramic Score for Luis Enriquez Bacalov. This was a low budget film but went on to become the highest grossing non-English language film for a long time. shot on location on the Italian islands of Salina and Procida and wonderfully photographed by Franco Di Gialomo this is the story of an unemployed and unmarried man Mario Ruoppolo (Massimo Troisi) reaching middle age years and is offered a small job as a postman with only one customer, the exiled Chilean communist poet Pablo Neruda (Phillipe Noiret) who is staying on the island. Mario and Pablo develop a warm friendship which leads a new confident Mario into writing poetry himself to woo local beauty, the barmaid Beatrice Russo (Maria Grazia Cucinotta). Basically a two actor film with a great cast in Troisi, Noiret and Cucinotta with great support in small roles from Linda Moretti as Neruda's mistress Donna Rosa and Renato Scarpa as Mario's boss. Nice costume design by Gianna Giss and production design by Lorenzo Baraldi. A fictionalized account of a brief 1952 stay on the island of Capri by Neruda written by Radford, Troisi, Furio and Giacomo Scarpelli and Anna Pavigano from a story by Antonio Skármeta set in Argentina during Neruda's exile there. This is a touching story and very well rendered. It is visually artistic and dramatically poetic with touches of smart, light comedy. It is painful to watch knowing that it's star, Troisi, filmed this against doctor's orders and ultimately ended up dying of a heart attack immediately after the principal filming. You can see him sweating in almost every scene even when he is not riding his bicycle and none of the other actors are sweating. For his health the director should have shut down or slowed production or recast him. A lot of work went into this for a small film and it paid off on the screen and at the box office. I would recommend this and give it an 8.5 out of 10.

jrichx123 I love these kinds of stories. Poetic in nature and heartfelt. This is a very touching love story. THe soundtrack combined with the poetic way the film moves along and the narration all come together wonderfully. The director, Michael Radford did a superb job of mixing the guy girl relationship and the guy guy relationship evenly. And what beautiful cinematography. It's not often that I say this, but I wish that it went on just a little longer. Maybe because I loved the soundtrack so much! I only wish that more movies were able to be made like this in the U.S. I really do think that there is an audience out there for this. I love independent movies. I'm new to the IMDb and look forward to catching new projects all the time.