Italy
DON’T TELL
(LA BESTIA NEL CUORE)
2005, Cristina Comencini, Italy, 120 min.
With Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Stefania Rocca, Angela Finocchiaro, Alessio Boni, Luigi Lo Cascio
“Powerfully moving but laced with incisive wit.”--Ray Bennett, Hollywood Reporter
A 2006 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, DON’T TELL treats a sensitive topic with tact and insight. Mezzogiorno (THE LAST KISS, FACING WINDOWS) took the Best Actress prize at Venice for her moving performance as a happily married woman driven by nightmares to uncover a devastating secret. Director-screenwriter-novelist Comencini supplies vibrant subplots (including the terrific Angela Finocchiaro as a jilted wife who finds solace in an unexpected place) that leaven the serious subject without trivializing it. In Italian and English with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Lionsgate. (MR)
Sunday, March 18, 5:00 pm
Wednesday, March 21, 6:00 pm
MANUAL OF LOVE
(MANUALE D’AMORE)
2005, Giovanni Veronesi, Italy, 108 min.
With Carlo Verdone, Silvio Muccino, Luciana Littizzetto, Sergio Rubini, Margherita Buy, Jasmine Trinca
Nominated for twelve of Italy’s Oscar-equivalent David di Donatello awards (and winning in the supporting-actor categories for Verdone and Buy), this nimble romantic comedy links together four vignettes representing the stages of love, from infatuation to abandonment. Standing out in a strong ensemble cast are Muccino as a lovesick young man, real-life ex-spouses Rubini and Buy as a couple in crisis, Littizzetto as a jilted policewoman out to get even, and Verdone as a doctor trying to rebuild his shattered life after his wife leaves him. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Filmauro. (MR)
Wednesday, March 7, 8:15 pm
Saturday, March 10, 2:45 pm
THE TIGER AND THE SNOW
(LA TIGRE E LA NEVE)
2005, Roberto Benigni, Italy, 110 min.
With Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Jean Reno
“Winsome, charming, and irresistibly romantic.”--Andrew O’Hehir, salon.com
“One appreciates the independent spirit behind a film boldly set during a war, and the graceful optimism and humor Benigni brings to his subject.”--Deborah Young, Variety
Trounced by most critics but better liked by audiences, TIGER returns Benigni to the finding-comedy-in-unlikely-places strategy of LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. He plays an eccentric professor/poet whose beloved (Braschi) is injured in Baghdad when the war breaks out. Benigni poses as a surgeon to slip into Iraq with a Red Cross unit, tangling with camels, minefields, and G.I.s as he races to the rescue. Jean Reno plays an Arab poet, and Tom Waits has a cameo as a wedding singer. In Italian, Arabic, and English with English subtitles. Preview courtesy of Strand Releasing. 35mm widescreen. (MR)