Bestia nel cuore, La (2005)

Director:

Cristina Comencini

Writers:

Giulia Calenda (story)
Cristina Comencini (novel)

Release Date:

17 March 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Sabina has a regular life. She is satisfied with her job and her love for Franco. Lately nightmares start disturbing her...

Plot Keywords:

Secret | New Year | Nightmare | Incest | Adultery

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 9 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Giovanna Mezzogiorno	...	Sabina
Alessio Boni	...	Franco
Stefania Rocca	...	Emilia
Angela Finocchiaro	...	Maria
Giuseppe Battiston	...	Andrea Negri
Luigi Lo Cascio	...	Daniele
Valerio Binasco	...	Father
Francesca Inaudi	...	Anita
Lucy Akhurst	...	Anne
Lewis Lemperuer Palmer	...	Giovanni
Jeke-Omer Boyayanlar	...	Bill
Simona Lisi	...	Mother
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Roberto Infascelli
Manny Oliverez	...	Airline Passenger

Also Known As:

Don't Tell (UK) (festival title) (USA)
Bête dans le coeur, La (France)
The Beast in the Heart (UK) (literal English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexual content, nudity, language and a brief violent image.

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

Italy | UK | France | Spain

Language:

Italian | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | New Zealand:R16 | Italy:VM14 (original rating) | Italy:T (re-rating after appeal) | USA:R | Argentina:16 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud)

Filming Locations:

Apulia, Italy

Company:

Cattleya

Why contemporary Italian cinema is so bad

If you liked "Ricordati di me" and "La meglio gioventu'" you will probably also like "La bestia nel cuore". If, on the other hand, you found it painful to watch those films, both because they are so bad "in assoluto" but also because you can only feel distraught at how far they have fallen from the masterpieces of Italian cinema, then La bestia nel cuore is not for you. "La bestia nel cuore" has the same melodramatic dialogue and plot, the same soap-operatic style of acting (Alessio Boni, who is in this one and also in "La meglio gioventu'" is the worst offender), the same mawkish musical score (strings abound), the same uninspired direction (according to the standard TV play-book), the same cast of bourgeois and petty bourgeois characters (each and every one self-absorbed and "antipatico"). The present cohort of young Italian actors and directors was the first generation to be raised and steeped in television, particularly in the very bad TV series imported from the US in the 70s and 80s—and it shows. But the explanation goes deeper. Italian cinema from the late 40s through the mid-80s was, at its best, a cinema that chronicled and portrayed the post-war crisis in Italian society, economy, politics, and mores. Its characters were at once fully fleshed out in psychological terms but also representative of and immersed in this crisis of Italian life. In a sense, their individual egos were the backdrop to that crisis, and the films had an edge and urgency to them (however light and comedic at times), because they spoke directly to the crisis. The current spate of bad Italian cinema has reversed that relationship: Italian society is a mere backdrop to the crisis in individual psyches. And since the psychology here is strictly pop and 3rd rate, the resultant cinema is little more than pap and drivel. (Incidentally, Bertolucci's work is itself illustrative of this trajectory—and even Moretti's recent work, "Il caimano", a film nominally about Berlusconi, lapses into this kind of navel-gazing.) One point of critical trivia that I cannot resist: why should Daniele's child, born and raised in Charlottesville Virginia by an Italian father and an American mother speak with a British accent?