Reality (2012) Poster

(II) (2012)

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7/10
great actors at work on a very depressing topic
Iwould30 September 2012
One of the things I have read more frequently about this movie is that, since it talks about the TV program "Big Brother", which in Italy has already reached the 12th season, it's supposed to be a decade late. Well: it's not, as the "Reality" mentioned in the title is obviously not the one of the TV-genre, but the actual one of nowadays Italy.

As Woody Allen wrote once, "life doesn't imitates art: imitates bad television". Following this line, the first scene is by far the more "fantastic" of the whole movie: we see an incredibly rich marriage ceremony, and we are not on TV or in any other fiction, but we are supposed to be in the real world - even if the settings and the outfits looks like a David LaChappelle picture. But later, when the guests go back to their homes, we see how theirs everyday "Reality" is made of poor dirty houses, impossibly crowded interiors, daily struggles and tricks to arrange a living. All places depicted completely lack any sign of awareness or responsible living in the world: newspapers don't exist, books are never read or shown, Internet is never searched – and receipts during commercial transactions are never issued. In this wasteland of culture and decency, feelings still grows. We can see that the main character still genuinely loves and cares for his wife and kids, and he could be called, in his own way, a good family man. But disaster suddenly happens when his set of values proves to be not enough to properly relate with the ghosts of fame and success.

This "Bigbrother" thing, when it was introduced in Italy had some cultural appeal, and for some months represented something worthy to talk about. But it has quickly evolved in a tire and sad repetition of the same situations, that seems to aim at a lower target every further year: and after more than 10 years of lowering, now it doesn't have audiences anymore, but victims. This movie will show you how one of those victims undergoes his own sacrifice. So, be prepared: it can't be anything else than a very sad story – highlighted anyhow by some great actor performances.
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7/10
Loss of reality
cinematic_aficionado26 March 2013
Reality is a fitting title about a man who totally lost it (his own sense of reality).

Part satire, part a comic-tragic portrait of our world with its vanities our hero is just an everyday guy who is a fishmonger, and like many others has a souse, children with all that goes with it.

His world is shaken when following a brief performance in a wedding reception he becomes acquainted with a celebrity and the desire is born in him that he can be part of this world, the world of stardom, wealth and recognition.

So by making use of this brief acquaintance he enters a competition to join big brother and does so in the certainty it will be his passport to fame and fortune. The contact with fame though ludicrously brief it is enough to cause him a great deal of harm.

The harm came in the form of obsessive behaviour, paranoia and hallucination causing a loss of his own self awareness and disregard for all those around him.

A charmer of a movie about vanity, obsession and a surrounding culture that feeds us these kind of fake feelings and desires.
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7/10
A portrait of human nature
DegustateurDeChocolat24 November 2014
When I started watching this movie I thought "Well, the director is Garrone and the movie is set in Naples, so it must be a copy of Gomorrah or something like that". Instead I was surprised of how Garrone nicely brought up another aspect of Naples and its inhabitants. The setting is a poor neighborhood in the Italian port city and the main character is Luciano, a fishmonger and father of two children. His daily life is ordinary and uneventful and he struggles to earn money through his first job and his second one which consists in cheating people by selling them some cleaning devices. Everything could change when he has the opportunity to participate to the Big Brother rehearsals where he can exploit his qualities as entertainer. His certainty of making it to the show is so strong that he becomes paranoid about people of the Big Brother casting staff spying on him to see if he's really a character as he claims to be in everyday life. He does many crazy things like selling his fishmonger activity and doling out his personal belongings to poor people in order to impress the alleged casting personnel following him. His mental condition soon worsens and develops into craziness which of course affects inevitably his family life. What I liked best about this movie is how Garrone underlines how miserable everyday life can be and how everyone is in search of the big opportunity to get out of misery. This however can lead to ruining personal and family life. I also appreciated how the director shows how some feelings and actions can be so evidently false as that of Luciano of being overly generous with poor people only for personal purposes. One last thing I would like to mark is Garrone's style of shooting, which was quite like that of Gomorrah, that's very simple and with seemingly amateur close shootings. Compared to Gomorrah however I would say that he wanted to give a more dreamy touch and also something Fellinesque: in one scene Luciano comes back home from the Big Brother rehearsal in Rome and, in the beautifully lit neighborhood, he's welcomed by his neighbors as a hero. In the next scene the neighborhood is showed in daytime during its normal daily activity, presenting all its simplicity and misery. Therefore an evident contrast is shown between dream and reality.
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6/10
Nice film with many hilarious moments. A bit too long for my taste, and populated with too many heavily gesturing Italians. Plot based on real story
JvH4812 July 2013
I saw this film as part of the Rotterdam film festival 2013 (IFFR), about someone pressured by his family to candidate himself for a Big Brother house. It all gets out of hand when he is not accepted initially but yet thinks to be on a sort of waiting list while being observed by the Big Brother team. He assumes being selected for a very special role in that TV show, and will be given a part later on when he proves to fit their criteria.

During the final Q&A the director said that the film is about dreaming to escape from reality and to loose one's identity. He describers the main character (Luciano) to be a victim of the system. Luciano desire to get into the Big Brother house comes from initial pressure by his family, though later on he himself gets a bit mad about it. He continues with rigor, in spite of protests from the same family that pressured him in the first place. The importance of the family cannot be stressed enough and has a crucial role in the story, something typical for Italy as stated by the director.

The story forming the basis for this scenario really happened to a brother of the director's wife. (By the way: He is fully recovered now. He has even re-opened his fish shop at the same spot in Naples.) And giving away his furniture to make a good impression on imaginary inspectors, was also real, even to the extent that his wife did not dare leaving the house in fear of finding it empty on return. Even the cricket that Luciano suspected to be full of camera's, appeared in reality too. The ending scenes seem a bit far fetched (I won't reveal details, for spoilers sake), but can be deemed all right if it really comes from the true story that was the basis of this film.

The director also said that the actors were taken from theater or cabaret (except one, a family member). Faces were an important criterion in the selection process. The roles they play and their appearances reflect a "normal" family from the region. That explains the overload of wrinkled people, and especially women looking like the stereotypical "mama" that we see in food commercials. Luckily, the main characters (Luciano and his wife) are not so bad looking, in contrast to their entourage.

All in all, the film is a nice product with many hilarious moments. It is a bit too long, in my opinion, particularly when you get easily annoyed by heavily gesturing Italians, talking with a waterfall of words (it looks that way for us, understanding no Italian) and overly dramatic movements. We won't consider this movie memorable, but it serves its purpose as family entertainment very well. Anyway, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves nevertheless. The venue (over 500 seats) was fully booked on a Sunday morning.
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7/10
about the i-reality of the reality shows
dromasca20 July 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Luciano owns a booth in the fish market in Naples and rounds his revenues with a suspect scheme of phony kitchen robots ordering and re-selling. He has a typically assertive Italian wife, three typically sticky and noisy Italian kids and a bunch of family and neighbors which are as typical as Fellini characters can be. His lodging in the decrypt area of Naples is kind of a set of the 'Leopard' abandoned for 150 years. His contact with the big world are the reality shows, his only apparent chance of breaking the walls of his limited life is getting on the set of the 'Big Brother' show. A dream which he will eventually achieve at the cost of his own sanity.

Aniello Arena is the name of the actor who plays Luciano and he does a fine job describing the descent of the character into insanity, his increasing obsession that all his life has become a reality show. Do you remember Truman Show starring Jim Carrey? The hero there thought that he was living a normal life and in reality all was a TV show. Here it's quite the opposite. Director Matteo Garrone does a fine cinematography job, and his sets look at many moments like descending from Fellini or Visconti. The ending may ask some questions about reality, but actually we have descended into the i-reality of such shows. I liked it.
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9/10
Reality: Not about reality TV
AmericanFilmTheory27 September 2012
Warning: Spoilers
** Contains Major Spoilers, including a discussion of the ending of the film** When asked about what he was trying to say with Faust, Goethe replied that what he wanted to say was what's he'd written in the play. If he'd wanted to say something else, he added, he would have written something else.

Matteo Garrone, of Gomorrah fame, is going for much the same answer about his latest work, Reality. I just saw the movie and the director himself at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where Garrone stepped on stage after the screening to take a few questions.

It was an entertaining back-and-forth between an audience gushing with praise and a visibly pleased but disarmingly unpretentious director. When asked to elaborate on the film's enigmatic ending, though, Garrone politely declined, saying that he'd rather leave it open to interpretation, and was more interested in what the audience thought.

So, here's my take. At the end of the movie, the main character Luciano, a Neapolitan fishmonger who auditioned for Grande Fratello (Italy's Big Brother) but never heard back, sneaks onto the set of the show in Cinecitta. None of the Big Brother contestants, who are splashing around in the pool, seem to notice him. Luciano, seemingly mesmerized by the giggling bunch, takes a seat on a sunbed in a courtyard nearby—and suddenly he can't stop laughing. The final shot zooms out, beginning with Luciano giggling all by himself and eventually encompassing all of Rome.

What does the uncontrollable giggle mean? Has Luciano lost his mind? That's a very real possibility. On the other hand, as Garrone pointed out to me when chatted briefly after the screening, he also may be laughing because he's finally won—after all, he is finally in "The House." But what kind of victory is that? I think we're supposed to compare the final scene with the first. The film opens with a panoramic shot of Naples in full daylight with Vesuvius and the Bay as a backdrop. Then the camera slowly zooms in on the odd spectacle of a gilded horse-drawn carriage. The carriage arrives at a sort of villa, where a staff dressed in what appears to be 18th century costumes opens to door for the passengers, a tacky bride and groom.

Both the opening and closing scenes revolve around some kind of fantasy, but one zooms in while the other zooms out. The colors are important here. The opening shots are strikingly colorful and bright, while the final shot is almost black and white, being shot at night and starting from the minimalist courtyard with its stylized white-backlit lounge chairs. The opening is crowded with family and friends, and in the end, Luciano is alone. The opening represents fantasy within the bounds of reality, while reality TV is fantasy beyond these boundaries.

By the end of the movie, Luciano has lost sight of what is most important: his family. It is true that his life as a fishmonger and scam artist is far from idyllic, but there is undoubtedly something valuable in the role he plays in his own small community. He is already a star to his relatives and friends, as we see from his comic performance at a family wedding at the beginning of the movie.

see the rest of this: americanfilmtheory.com
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6/10
Reality Bites
iblayne-644-55063027 March 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Reality is a wonderfully drawn film that showcases the obsessive behavior of a guy destined (in his own mind) to take the prize on Italy's 'Big Brother.' Not a new premise by any stretch, and always difficult to watch. He basically throws his life, the life of his family, and his own sanity out the window for a stupid reality TV show, before needing the proper motivation to fight his way back.

That being said it is a story of flawed characters. Of which we are all. So I tried very hard to get over my general distaste of the main character's actions and maneuvers to enjoy the story that was being told.

Direction and cinematography are top notch. Simply exquisite. The non stop sweeping camera made my knees weak at times...and I simply loved the title treatment at the end of the film. Probably even gained it another star simply because it made me smile on my way out the door.

But when all is said and done we find our characters, and in many ways ourselves, left exactly as we were to begin with, nothing learned, nothing lost, and definitely nothing ultimately gained.
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8/10
Reality
lasttimeisaw17 July 2012
I'm not afraid to admit that I actually prefer this film to Garrone's previous characters-melange crime-drama GOMORRAH (2008, a 7/10), albeit both won Cannes's Grand Prize of the Jury in their respective years.

I watched the film in KVIFF a few days ago, and I am thrilling to see that there is a change of attitude in detailing a riveting story of Naples people's mundane life, about a reality-show sparks a never-be-quenched yearning of a Naples fishmonger's pipe dream of becoming a reality-star, which turns him paranoid about his surroundings and mars his and his family's life, and all winds up in an ambiguous ending.

REALITY has a drastic alternation in its visual impetus, a Fellini-esque Napoli milieu (with the mammoth structure of kins under a dilapidated tableaux), which could instantly gain some positive impression from the film's opening sequence, which induces a tremendously lush wedding ceremony. A comical tone has never ceased to hover around the typical but accurate portrayal of the workaday life of our protagonist and his family (a hanky-panky retail business of pasta-making robots is the highlight) until the latter part when everyone on screen and offscreen realize the one-sided opportunity will never arrive except for our leading man in the film, so literally how miserable his ending would be has grown into the main concern hanging the film's weight. And there would be a great chance it would plunge into an irreversible maw of tragedy, but luckily it doesn't, Garrone alters a lightly grotesque route and resorts to a more theatrical maneuver to leave the finale in a spell bound shot, effectively ridicules and bashes the reality-show oriented credo in the present-time.

The gorgeous score from extraordinarily talented composer Alexandre Desplat is another selling point, seamlessly goes with the plot, and thwarts a likely bathos when the soothing comedic temper is steadily mitigated and the film veers to a suspicious restlessness and ultimately the irrational madness.

The cast is plainly spot-on in spite of Aniello Arena's over-handsome and beefcake image as a fishmonger, Raffaele Ferrante's rendering of a reality-star who originally rose from the mass, is both hilarious and sarcastic in stressing the ill-infused celebrity-rules notion, which is indubitably not the only entrance to fame and fortune for those wide-eyed dreamers.
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7/10
it'll be a great day when there are no reality shows
lee_eisenberg18 March 2024
I learned of Matteo Garrone from his 2015 movie "Tale of Tales", an unusual spin on fairy tales. It turned out that he had earlier directed 2012's "Reality". The movie is part focus on Italy's working-class population, part indictment of reality TV's exploitation of "real people". The plot involves a fishmonger who gets chosen for a role on a reality show.

I should note that if you're only used to stereotypical Hollywood movies, then you'll want to avoid this one like the coronavirus. Much of the movie consists of long takes, focusing very much on the dialog. A good thing, if you ask me. I would like to see more movies about people and the modern world's impact on them.

I don't know if I would go so far as to call the movie a masterpiece, but it shows the Italy that exists beyond the fashion shows, bike races, etc. Worth seeing.
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8/10
An Entertaining Satire
georgep531 April 2013
Warning: Spoilers
A horse driven coach beautifully adorned and accompanied by elegantly dressed coachmen makes its way to a wedding ceremony while the grubby business of daily life goes on around it. One can almost imagine the clock striking midnight and the coach reverting back into a pumpkin while the horses & coachmen become mice. Like the folks sitting in the coach we crave our escapist fantasies even though we know that when we wake up in the morning the world will still be the same old place. But what happens when a man becomes so desirous of fame & fortune that the real world seems fake and the dream world becomes reality? That forms the basis of Matteo Garrone's Cannes Film Festival 2012 Grand Prix winner--"Reality" a wonderfully entertaining comedy-drama starring Aniello Arena as Luciano a fishmonger who lives a quiet middle class life with his wife and children. His wife, Maria, played by Loredana Simioli works as a marketer for a dubious new device called the "Robot" which promises to revolutionize work in the kitchen. Arena's friend and employee Michele (Nando Paone)is devoted to religious iconography and can't seem to stop making the sign of the cross while attending church. After Luciano is persuaded one day to audition for the Italian version of "Big Brother" his determination to join the cast becomes the pivotal objective of his life so much so that his friends begin to worry that he may be losing his mind.

In "Reality" Garrone masterfully satirizes a world governed by superstition, consumerism and the ultimate hallucinogen-----television. Reality television is no more real than anything else on the tube. It's like sitting in a carriage that will turn into a pumpkin when the cameras stop rolling. Aniello Arena and Loredana Simioli are perfect as Luciano and his suffering wife. "Reality" vacillates between the poignant and the absurdly funny.
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7/10
Well done
vittoriogiannotti22 March 2020
Mostra la reality non il reality. Hahahhahahahhahahshhahahsh
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9/10
Society of the spectacle--with a heart
bobbie-1620 February 2019
Garrone's magical movie opens with bows to two great scenes of Italian cinema: the ornate wedding carriage recalls the child's funeral procession from The Gold of Naples, and the helicopter-borne star of a reality show replays the helicopter ride of Jesus in La Dolce Vita. These images evoke Italy as the longest-running "society of the spectacle": Roman games; Renaissance princes and popes who conned everyone, as Machiavelli says; the splendors of the Counter-Reformation Church; and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi with the sun in his pocket-"il sole in tasca." Luciano--fish monger, petty con artist, and pater familias--longs to be cast in a reality show called Big Brother. His quest becomes increasingly obsessive and fantasmagoric, and his extended family shifts from humorous support to escalating concern. Will his dream come true? Aniello Arena in the part of Luciano is terrific and will capture your heart; he has a surprising and poignant story of his own, which you can check online for yourselves. Garrone is a master of production design, creating exuberant post-modern sets in which decaying Neapolitan palazzi mingle with malls and water slides. This movie is perhaps not for everyone-only for those prepared to enter a world that is theatrical, flamboyant, sentimental, and ironic--one that calls for a sense of humor and a big heart.
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6/10
review
yoshi_s_story20 November 2014
Warning: Spoilers
As terms indicate, and none but few even among the intelligentzia had foreseen, the virtual reality sold by mass communication has had an awesome capability to interpenetrate with «reality», going beyond any prediction. To the extent that by antonomasia «reality» became the most common synonym for «reality show». Ambigous by choice, the title of this film can then mean one or another thing: does it refer to a kind of TV production, reality shows, or to «reality»?

Perhaps following the story will uncover the answer to this, however, realities, initially said to be to reflect reality, have then significantly shaped the latter (just as social networks are shaping society injecting virtuality into it, rather than being a mere reproduction of society on a virtual dimension). Perhaps by now reality and realities are one new mixed entity, and not discernible anymore.

It is for a good part of it a decent film, with patently low-budget actors giving their all, non-cheap irony, raising with due discretion a contemporary crucial sociological problem, perhaps the main one: the seemingly limitless influence of mass media on the very lives of masses. The ending is well done, and mention-worthy for beauty are end credits.
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