Sex, Cinema, Marriage and Other Dangerous Activities
*
* Save
* Share
o Digg
o Facebook
o Mixx
o Yahoo! Buzz
o Permalink
Article Tools Sponsored By
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: June 4, 2008
Sergio Castellitto, the star of “The Wedding Director,” is not what you would call a comedian. His glowering ferocity is currently on display in “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” in which he plays the principal villain with Shakespearean relish. Over the last decade his anxious, melancholy countenance — the difference between mild concern and existential agony can be measured in the angle of his frown — has lent intelligence and gravity to films directed by Jacques Rivette, Marco Bellocchio and Mr. Castellitto himself.
More About This Movie
* Overview
* Tickets & Showtimes
* New York Times Review
* Cast, Credits & Awards
* Readers' Reviews
Skip to next paragraph
But if Mr. Castellitto is rarely funny in the usual sense, he is almost always witty. One of his eyebrows tilts a little higher than the other, animating his stoical features with a hint of skepticism, or perhaps surprise. Mr. Bellocchio, the writer and director of “The Wedding Director,” allows him a single smile in the course of the film, but like a Buster Keaton hero, the actor refuses mirth in part to provoke the audience’s laughter.
Wandering into an aristocrat’s villa, Mr. Castellitto is discovered by a pair of passive-aggressive Rottweilers. More befuddled than afraid, he addresses them in German. That encounter is one of many laugh-out-loud scenes in “The Wedding Director” that seem to be played for maximum glumness.
While a step-by-step plot summary suggests comedy, or even farce, Mr. Bellocchio mischievously scrambles the tone with suspenseful music, funereally elegant scenes and the occasional throb of melodrama. The result is unpredictable and sometimes confounding, but the movie is pulled into beguiling coherence by an odd and effective combination of absurdism and sincerity.
Mr. Castellitto, who portrayed an anxious intellectual for Mr. Bellocchio in “My Mother’s Smile” (2002), is the perfect vessel for this director’s playful, sorrowful sensibility. This time Mr. Castellitto plays Franco, a middle-aged filmmaker beset by personal trouble and professional malaise who finds himself in a small town in Sicily. He is recognized by a local wedding videographer — a big fan — who begs Franco to add some artistic touches to his current assignment, a standard shot of newlyweds strolling along the beach. Franco obliges by suggesting a stationary camera, full-frontal nudity and intimations of suicide.
Before he knows it, he has been commissioned by a sinister prince (Sami Frey) to shoot his daughter’s wedding, perhaps in the style of Luchino Visconti. Franco promptly falls in love with the daughter (Donatella Finocchiaro), at once the craziest thing he could possibly do and the sanest.
There is a rich vein of satire running through the story, which mocks both the pretensions of Italy’s cinematic artists — who like to be addressed as “dottore” or “maestro” — and their increasing marginality. Before his own disaffection and a sexual-harassment investigation derail the project, Franco had been working on yet another adaptation of “The Betrothed,” Alessandro Manzoni’s 1827 novel, which has become a staple both of the Italian school curriculum and of the Italian film industry. He also is haunted by news of the death of a colleague, a hack whose untimely demise suggests the only available route to immortality.
The liveliest aspect of “The Wedding Director” may be its cynicism, which is directed at sex, cinema and nearly everything else that matters in modern Italy. But what keeps the film from curdling into a grumpy, aging artist’s complaint about the state of the world is the sense that the cynicism is balanced by and arises from affection. Mr. Bellocchio, like Franco, may be on the brink of despair when he contemplates his native land and his chosen art form, but he can’t help loving them both. And anyone who loves Italian movies — by which I mean anyone with eyes, ears and a libido — is likely to be seduced by “The Wedding Director.”
THE WEDDING DIRECTOR
Opens on Wednesday in
Manhattan.
Written (in Italian, with English subtitles) and directed by Marco Bellocchio; director of photography, Pasquale Mari; edited by Francesca Calvelli; music by Riccardo Giagni; art director, Marco Dentici; produced by Mr. Bellocchio and Sergio Pelone; released by New Yorker Films. At the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, Museum of Modern Art. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Sergio Castellitto (Franco Elica), Donatella Finocchiaro (Bona Gravina) and Sami Frey (Prince di Palagonia).
Average Reader Rating
5 rating, 1 vote
Rate It
Log In to Rate This Movie
Readers' Reviews (0)
Write a Review
Read All Readers' Reviews »
Related Articles
* Critic's Choice: New DVD's (April 25, 2006)
* FILM REVIEW; Faking the Family Life, With a Kidnapping Victim Behind the Bookshelf (November 11, 2005)
* FILM REVIEW; A Family Cursed by a Mother Headed for Sainthood (February 11, 2005)
* FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; With Hearts On Fire, Souls Dying Of Thirst (October 10, 2003)
Ads by Google what's this?
5 Tips for a Flat Stomach
Stop making these 5 mistakes & you will finally lose your ugly belly.
www.BellyFatIsUgly.net
Free Catholic Movies and
the Truth About What Happened to the Catholic Church after VaticanII
www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com
The Hidden ET Threat
to Freedom and Sovereignty Free eBook
www.AlliesofHumanity.org
Tickets & Showtimes
Enter your ZIP code or city to view tickets and showtimes in your area.
Ads by Google what's this?
Free Video
Watch & Share Millions of Videos about movie review hollywood
100links.com/Video
5 Tips to Lose Belly Fat
Stop making these 5 mistakes & you will finally lose your ugly belly.
www.BellyFatIsUgly.net
Free Catholic Movies and
the Truth About What Happened to the Catholic Church after VaticanII
www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com
The New York Times Theater
nytimes.com/theater
Coverage of the Tony Awards
Also in Theater:
* Complete list of the nominees
* Who will win a Tony this year?
* Scenes from a season
Advertisements
No comments:
Post a Comment