Anyone who ever thought that secretive Italian author Elena Ferrante is actually a man hiding behind a female nom de plume is surely dreaming. The deeply realized dynamic between childhood best friends turned frenemies Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo could hardly be conjured from a male gaze. Their riveting, decades-long push-pull is explored across the four novels in Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, which have been adapted into an equally riveting series for HBO. The Italian production now begins a gorgeously wrought second season that vividly recreates 1950s postwar Naples, and the complex relationships among its denizens, all of whom are looking for something more among the ruins.
Director Saverio Costanzo returns to helm the first episode of the new season, lifting from the sequel to “My Brilliant Friend,” “The Story of a New Name.” However, this season he hands over directing duties on two episodes to fellow Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher,...
Director Saverio Costanzo returns to helm the first episode of the new season, lifting from the sequel to “My Brilliant Friend,” “The Story of a New Name.” However, this season he hands over directing duties on two episodes to fellow Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher,...
- 3/16/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
When Saverio Costanzo, the director of HBO and Rai’s “My Brilliant Friend,” started to plan how he would depict the grand but gritty city of Naples — one that’s so vivid in the imaginations of millions of Elena Ferrante readers, he quickly decided that the working-class neighborhood at the core of her four Neapolitan novels had to be fictional.
“Our starting point was always the fake city,” he says, noting that precisely because no other city in Italy has such a strong identity, keeping the right distance from Naples was what enabled him to represent it so intensely.
The drab ’hood called Rione Luzzatti was reconstructed on the grounds of an abandoned glass factory in Caserta, about 20 miles north of Naples, a roughly 5-acre converted space that’s become among the largest sets in Europe. Production designer Giancarlo Basili and local craftsmen built many of the story’s most...
“Our starting point was always the fake city,” he says, noting that precisely because no other city in Italy has such a strong identity, keeping the right distance from Naples was what enabled him to represent it so intensely.
The drab ’hood called Rione Luzzatti was reconstructed on the grounds of an abandoned glass factory in Caserta, about 20 miles north of Naples, a roughly 5-acre converted space that’s become among the largest sets in Europe. Production designer Giancarlo Basili and local craftsmen built many of the story’s most...
- 1/18/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
An overly-ambitious mix of movie satire, political polemic and personal drama, The Caiman is strongest when it is least on its political soap box. Stripped of its thematic excesses, it's a bracing comedy about one desperate producer's attempt to revive his family life. Bolstered by an endearingly vulnerable performance by Silvio Orlando as the beleagured producer, the Competition film should be a strong contender for the Palme d'Or, and Orlando's endearing performance could notch a Best Actor award.
For the true movie buffs at this festival, Caiman recalls Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love, about a husband's tender and nutty struggles to reconcile his separation with the fact that he still loves his wife.
In this heady mix, Berlusconi is the MacGuffin: Namely, making a film about Berlusconi is the Quixotic grand quest which Bruno, our comical, capsizing producer latches on to. A producer of the sort one runs into at the Riviera -- he's churned out a lifetime's worth of schlock. Nevertheless, they are the sort of movies that his two boys, 9 and 7, think are terrific.
Remarkably, a project falls into his lap from a new writer, a severe young woman who wishes to distill and expose the entire media and political career of Berlusconi into a feature film. It's not a project for the faint-hearted, and Bruno is no social crusader; in fact, he considers Berlusconi's opponents on the Left to be hopeless sad-sacks. And action-adventure is his genre, not political films. Not surprisingly, a film about Berlusconi is not an idea that his countrymen latch onto readily: Some fear repercussions, while others dismiss making a film "about someone you already know everything about."
Swirling his story through a film-in-a-film orbit, filmmaker Nanni Moretti mixes political satire with the crazy movement of the film world: An actor wants to make Berlusconi more dashing and powerful; a set designer wants to make his world more noble and tasteful -- in essence, the focus is quickly shifted from the sour screenplay to a high-speech soap.
Unfortunately, the Berlusconi sections are a contradictory tonal swirl, movie satire meshed with equally superficial political editorializing. Yet, amid this high storyline, a much more powerful personal story emerges below the buzz-line radar: Bruno is magnificent with his young boys, a wise and doting father who nourishes them and inspires them with his storytelling antics. All the while, he is trying to win back the love of his life, his wife, a former actress who has moved on to other things. You truly root for Bruno, and care about his family. It's in these transitional family scenes between the Berlusconi yap that The Caiman is most touching and eloquent.
In essence, this movie could use some trimming and the courage to drop its self-delusional pose as a high-minded political tract, and embrace the fact that it is best as a small family drama.
Under Moretti's deft hand, the performances are consistently lively and credible. In addition to Silvio Orlando's heady performance, Margherita Buy is winningly sympathetic as his change-of-heart wife.
Technical contributions are distinguished by production designer Giancarlo Basili's keen eye for the telling character stitches in both Bruno's loving home and his ragtag office.
THE CAIMAN
Sacher Film, Bac Films, Stephan Films, France 3 Cinema with the collaboration of Wild Bunch, Canal +, Cinecinema in association with Sofica unietoile 3, Sofica comfimage 17.
Director: Nanni Moretti; Story: Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef; Screenwriters: Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo, Federica Pontremoli; Producers: Angelo Barbagallo, Nanni Moretti; Director of photography: Arnaldo Catinari; Production designer: Giancarlo Basili; Costume designer: Lina Nerli Taviani; Editor: Esmeralda Calabria; Music: Franco Piersanti.
Cast. Bruno: Silvio Orlando; Paola: Margherita Buy; Andrea: Daniele Rampello; Giacomo: Giacomo Passarelli; Teresa: Jasmine Trinca; Luisa: Cecilia Dazzi; Margherita: Martina Lero.
No MPAA Rating, running time 112 minutes.
For the true movie buffs at this festival, Caiman recalls Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love, about a husband's tender and nutty struggles to reconcile his separation with the fact that he still loves his wife.
In this heady mix, Berlusconi is the MacGuffin: Namely, making a film about Berlusconi is the Quixotic grand quest which Bruno, our comical, capsizing producer latches on to. A producer of the sort one runs into at the Riviera -- he's churned out a lifetime's worth of schlock. Nevertheless, they are the sort of movies that his two boys, 9 and 7, think are terrific.
Remarkably, a project falls into his lap from a new writer, a severe young woman who wishes to distill and expose the entire media and political career of Berlusconi into a feature film. It's not a project for the faint-hearted, and Bruno is no social crusader; in fact, he considers Berlusconi's opponents on the Left to be hopeless sad-sacks. And action-adventure is his genre, not political films. Not surprisingly, a film about Berlusconi is not an idea that his countrymen latch onto readily: Some fear repercussions, while others dismiss making a film "about someone you already know everything about."
Swirling his story through a film-in-a-film orbit, filmmaker Nanni Moretti mixes political satire with the crazy movement of the film world: An actor wants to make Berlusconi more dashing and powerful; a set designer wants to make his world more noble and tasteful -- in essence, the focus is quickly shifted from the sour screenplay to a high-speech soap.
Unfortunately, the Berlusconi sections are a contradictory tonal swirl, movie satire meshed with equally superficial political editorializing. Yet, amid this high storyline, a much more powerful personal story emerges below the buzz-line radar: Bruno is magnificent with his young boys, a wise and doting father who nourishes them and inspires them with his storytelling antics. All the while, he is trying to win back the love of his life, his wife, a former actress who has moved on to other things. You truly root for Bruno, and care about his family. It's in these transitional family scenes between the Berlusconi yap that The Caiman is most touching and eloquent.
In essence, this movie could use some trimming and the courage to drop its self-delusional pose as a high-minded political tract, and embrace the fact that it is best as a small family drama.
Under Moretti's deft hand, the performances are consistently lively and credible. In addition to Silvio Orlando's heady performance, Margherita Buy is winningly sympathetic as his change-of-heart wife.
Technical contributions are distinguished by production designer Giancarlo Basili's keen eye for the telling character stitches in both Bruno's loving home and his ragtag office.
THE CAIMAN
Sacher Film, Bac Films, Stephan Films, France 3 Cinema with the collaboration of Wild Bunch, Canal +, Cinecinema in association with Sofica unietoile 3, Sofica comfimage 17.
Director: Nanni Moretti; Story: Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef; Screenwriters: Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo, Federica Pontremoli; Producers: Angelo Barbagallo, Nanni Moretti; Director of photography: Arnaldo Catinari; Production designer: Giancarlo Basili; Costume designer: Lina Nerli Taviani; Editor: Esmeralda Calabria; Music: Franco Piersanti.
Cast. Bruno: Silvio Orlando; Paola: Margherita Buy; Andrea: Daniele Rampello; Giacomo: Giacomo Passarelli; Teresa: Jasmine Trinca; Luisa: Cecilia Dazzi; Margherita: Martina Lero.
No MPAA Rating, running time 112 minutes.
- 5/23/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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