Naveen Sankaran
I have seen some Italian classics but not this! Many disturbing movies brings about some terrible horror sequence out of the way to show the audience that this is a terrible movie. This movie doesn't have such things. Hats off to the director who made such a script (a strong one). The screenplay is a bit complex and not all can accept the fact that this is a dark gem. If you can understand the screenplay, you wont complaint!I have to give the credits to the lead character all the way! I hardly recognize these actors but once the movie started off, I started traveling with the lead character. This is how a movie should be. The visuals were excellent. They were lovely at some places, haunting at some places, sexy at some but also horror at some. Very good images lifts the essence of the movie to a whole new level. I cant find any mistakes in the screenplay and I have to tell you this is a rare piece - a dark gem out there. Don't miss the experience.Must watch. Highly recommended.
unobandido
Being of Italian birth and upbringing,I usually watch a lot of these movies.Most of the time I find them to be spaghetti for the brain or just a way to fill a couple of hours. This was on our local public station last Friday night and my partner and I watched it. Believe me when I tell you that it blew our socks off with it's very exacting script,excellent acting and a plot that didn't really become clear till the last five or ten minutes of the movie.In other words a real cliff-hanger. I would purchase this film tomorrow if I could but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available in my zone. Ah well,hope it gets repeated real soon.
jotix100
Irena, who arrives in Trieste, with what appears to be a lot of cash, looking for an apartment where to live; she chooses a dilapidated place that offers an advantage: from its windows, she can spy on the building across the square. In order to gain access, Irina bribes the janitor into getting work as a maid. She seeks Gina, a woman who works for a couple that make jewelry in their spacious apartment. It is clear Irena has something else in mind, and couldn't care less for Gina.When Gina suffers an accident, Irena applies for the position, and surprise, surprise, she gets it. The rapport with the little girl Tea becomes apparent. Valeria Adacher, the lady of the house warns her about Tea, who has what appears to be a neurological condition that makes her fall and cannot get up by herself. She also tells her not to enter her workshop ever. Irina spots the safe where the jewelry is kept. Naturally, one assumes then, her interest in gaining access to the house is to steal, but no, she has something else in mind, as we watch her going over some papers that are kept locked up. Valeria and her husband, Donato, seem not to be a happy couple. They are heard loudly arguing in the background by the maid, so all is not right in their home.Irina and Tea form a tight bond, something that Valeria notices right away. The maid wants to teach the girl how to overcome her handicap, and to this end, she ties Tea and pushes her to the mattresses on the floor and coaxes her into getting up using her technique. In our minds we begin wondering if there is more in Irena's attitude toward Tea because it is a rare thing for a house maid to become so involved in making better someone that is not even related to her.In flashbacks we get to know a little bit of Irena's past. She has been turned into a prostitute by Italian criminals who import these poor girls from Russia. She meets a young man who seems to love her. Since she is what she is, this lover, is made to disappear by Mold, the vicious man that controls her. Irena discovers where he has stashed his cash and tries to kill Mold with scissors, but unknown to her, he survives. Mold has a way of turning up when he is least expected.Things turn out wrong for Irena when Valeria discovers her dark secret. She fires her and forbids her to go near Tea. Unfortunately, Valeria dies in an automobile accident for which Irena is accused of masterminding. At the same time, things about the mystery surrounding the Russian woman are revealed. In her trial, she is convicted and sent to prison. As the film concludes, we see an older Irena who is released after serving time and as she waits for a bus, who would show up to meet her?Giuseppe Tornatore, the talented Italian director of the hugely popular "Cinema Paradiso" and "Malena", just to mention two of his previous films, makes us get involved with this complex story. Working with his collaborator, Massimo DeRita, he has created a multi layered melodrama that involves the viewer. The only problem is that many things are not completely explained. Thus, there is a hint that Donato Adacher has a lot to do in the story, although his participation is a subtle one. The other mystery is Gina, who for all appearances dies in the accident, but later is seen at the nursing home in a catatonic state, but is she really? The idea that Mold can survive the stabbing is hard to digest, after all, it's a big stretch of the imagination to think he can still be around after what Irena does to him. Mr. Tornatore is obviously playing with the viewer in making him believe to look at things a certain way, while he is deceiving our perception of the plot. If all that is superfluous, then the viewer is going to have a great time.Best of all in the film is Ksenia Rappoport, who plays Irena convincingly. She runs away with the film. Ms. Rappoport pulls us into the story without doing much. Claudia Gerini's Valeria is also an asset in the film. Alessandro Haber who plays the janitor has some excellent moments. Michele Placido is seen as the obnoxious criminal Mold. Margherita Buy, one of the best Italian actresses working these days puts in an appearance at the last part of the film. Finally, Clara Dossena makes a valuable contribution as Tea, the sweet child in the story.The musical score by the master of all movie composers, Ennio Morricone, will stay in our minds for a while. Fabion Zamarion's impeccable cinematography makes a great impression. We await Mr. Tornatore's next film impatiently.
sitenoise
A little hard to follow and a little hard to swallow, this film by the director of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is gritty and loose. A dark controlled chaos in skilled hands, it feels like an army of films rushing at you all at once. It's a bit overwhelming until the grabs you, sucks you in and won't let you go performance of Xenia Rappoport kicks in. She's a magnet in the middle of a mysterious mayhem. It's too bad that the style and substance of the film will prevent it from ever becoming popular because her portrayal of suffering and sheer determination is one for the history books. The woman's got chops. She moves like an insect through the undergrowth of her seedy milieu with an androgynous, unkempt beauty that's both tempting and invisible. She's able to shift her portrayal from one emotion to another, and then another, without moving a muscle in her face—a skill few actors possess. It's her story and we follow her through it not knowing exactly what she's after or what she will do with it when she seems to have it in her grasp. That's the unknown part and Rappoport plays the mystery for all it's worth. She works the complex narrative inside her head and lets the revelations drip out slowly, uncontrollably.Director Giuseppe Tornatore says this film is about a woman reclaiming her power as a woman (there's a great big serving of motherhood with that) after it has been stripped from her from every angle imaginable. Rappoport's character is the victim of a human slave trade that uses immigrant Eastern European women to make babies for the upper-class. She's gotten out of it, but with a lot of baggage. Some of it is misplaced and some of it is hurled at us in short, chaotic flashbacks in the beginning of the film (that's the hard to follow part), slowly unfolding to more understandable scenes as they catch up with her present life at the end of the film—a nice structural technique by the director.Roger Ebert wrote a review of this movie which essentially lists the aspects of it he thinks he understands and the aspects he thinks he doesn't. He scores a little above average, I think, which is about as good as anyone is probably going to do. There's a noir-ish component (not a stylistic one) to the film where major events and character traits are unleashed which are way beyond the reality of any mere mortal's life. There are also plenty of cause-for-pause moments when you will consider if the means justify the end. That's the hard to swallow part but I'm not complaining. It is a movie after all, and if you've read many of my reviews you know that I take all comers when it comes to plot gymnastics as long as they don't infringe upon the integrity of my players, as long as they don't cause incredulity to appear on the faces of the actors because they don't believe the script. Giuseppe Tornatore is lucky, or smart, to have enlisted an actress with the strength of Xenia Rappoport. ET coulda popped in here and I don't think she would have missed a beat.Speaking of beats, Ennio Morricone scored this film with superbly.
