Tag Archives: italian

There were very few commercial feature films made during the Italian fascist era that were as openly propagandistic as this famous (notorious?) dramatic paean to the Blackshirts. The story takes place in a small village in Italy in October of 1922, on the eve of the fascist “March on Rome”, in which King Victor Emanuel III was persuaded to consign power to Benito Mussolini. Gianfranco Giachetti is Dr. Cardini, a doctor at the local psychiatric hospital, where a strike has been called by the local socialists. Cardini turns to the fascists to help avert the strike. His son Roberto (Mino Doro) rounds up fascist friends to fight those aligned with the strikers and the town’s socialists.
Read More »

Nel marzo 1849, Carlo Alberto è in procinto di riprendere la guerra contro gli Austriaci. Da tutta Italia arrivano in Piemonte volontari decisi a combattere per l’indipendenza dall’Austria. La mattina del 20 marzo una pattuglia rimane tagliata fuori in territorio nemico, mentre sta per avere inizio la battaglia di Novara: una pericolosa avventura che dura tre giorni.
Read More »

A beautiful blonde hooks up with a rock star, and after a night of sex and drugs, he leaves. She, though, has fallen madly in love with him, and sets out with her girlfriend across Europe to track him down. On the way, however, she gets mixed up with everyone from a gang of nasty bikers to a ring of devil worshipers.
Read More »

A classic Risi of the late 60s. This time his biting humor doesn’t deal with social or political issues but seven situations leaning on absurdity.
Read More »

Nicola confronts his beautiful wife about the affair she’s been having. But someone brutally murders her in the shower, right after he leaves the house. Naturally Nicola is made prime suspect. But his colleague, Anna, sees signs that the murder may have been committed by the so-called “Midnight Ripper”. The only problem is that the Midnight Ripper has been dead for several years…
Read More »

Submarine disaster drama made under the auspices of Mussolini’s department of defense. During maneuvers a submarine collides with a surface vessel and drops to the ocean floor. The crew have thirty hours’ worth of air to get it back to the surface.
Read More »

Misadventures of a young lawyer who, left alone at home for the departure of the jealous wife, is having to help a lady living in a top floor apartment, who asks him to host her to save her from the wrath of her husband. The young man offers his bed to the lady, content to sleep on the couch. The next morning, upon awakening, the lady is already gone, but at the same time is also missing a precious necklace of great value.
Read More »

Daro un Milione was another felicitous collaboration between director Mario Camerini and his favorite star Vittorio de Sica. Read More »

A married Sicilian baron falls in love with his cousin and vows to wed her, but with divorce illegal he must concoct a crime of passion to do away with his wife.
Read More »

In China, in the foothills of the Himalayas, a non-violent egalitarian society has for millennia offered proof that a harmonious and peaceful life is still possible. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations the Mosuo were recognized as a “model society”. On what basis does this community of about 50,000 people function? Above all, for how much longer can it resist the pressures of a market economy engendered by strategically organized mass tourism? In a landscape of outstanding beauty, encounters and testimonies draw us closer to the traditional values cherished by this ethnic group confronted by a crucial challenge: how to safeguard the essence of its identity from destruction and not succumb, as have so many other societies, to the impact of unconstrained globalization.
Read More »

Like in many other Monicelli movies, the main theme of Amici miei is friendship, seen from a rather bitter point of view. It tells the story of four middle-aged friends in Florence who organize together idle pranks (called zingarate, “gypsy shenanigans”) in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life…
Read More »

Vittorio (Enrico M. Salerno) is a 40-year-old journalist who reaches a mid-life crisis. His wife nags him constantly for ignoring her and their child. After his mistress dumps him, Vittorio returns to the town where he spent his childhood to reflect on the state of his life. Flashbacks are used to tell of Vittorio’s relationship with his parents as a child and the effects World War II had on his development.
Read More »

A demon bestows on a self-righteous working photographer’s camera the power to smite from the Earth “evil-doers”. Naturally, the indignant photographer turns his new weapon on, one by one, his entire village, beginning with the wealthy or illustrious. Soon, the poor he is so supposedly so enamored of become his victims too, so rife with impatience and contempt is he, that the slightest flaw is cause for smiting. Inevitably, he embarks on a task to destroy everyone.
Read More »

The film tells the story of a Spanish soldier, who falls in love with a gypsy only to end up deserting the army and being chased into the border lands, where he joins the gypsy smugglers to rob money for a journey to America. But it turns out his love has a husband and is only using him again and again….
Read More »

Marco Bellocchio’s My Mother’s Smile was deemed blasphemous by the Roman Catholic Church for what the Church referred to as Bellocchio’s “systematic destruction of family and religious values.” Contrary to the Church’s presumptions about Bellocchio, My Mother’s Smile is a fascinating portrait of a man (Sergio Castellitto as Ernesto) who is forced to reconcile with his own atheism after receiving a shocking appeal from the Church requesting his participation in the canonization of his “saintly” mother.
Read More »