"mezza sola" means half a shoe sole in italian. It is an expression used to describe something that didn't quite satisfy. After all the oop-la, the expectations for this motion picture were high. But at the end, our "stomachs" were left empty. Production-wise, it was poor: most of the shots are indoors, with very few outdoor shots. In the entire movie length, only one vehicle is seen. The movie is billed as the emigrant experience of a southern italian to the industrialized city of Turin in the late '50s. It is actually a family drama of the relationship of two brothers. It used the Turin emigrant story as background, and yet the city was hardly seen. If the movie was billed as the story of two brothers in China's Shangai, one could hardly find a problem with it (I say this to emphasize how much the "indoor" shots were dense). Also, each single take seemed to be three seconds too loooong. It is as if the director is in love with the story, he is financing the movie with his own money, and thus he feels justified to make his story told on his long, boring way. The style of the cinematography and costumes is a Spielberg-like focus on a few pivotal items such as rope being used to tie shut-closed the overbulging suitcases, the rawness of clothing, and the thick sician accented dialogues. But, like Spielberg's, this picture was noticeable in that it was a historical drama *intentionally* retouched awash in a sepia-backgrounded memory. To me, it trivialized the story. A more sucessfull aproach is Lina Wertmuller's, that, while certain traits are over emphasized, but justified if the film is not a drama but a comedy, in which the focus is not the manieristic style itself but the story, this in a mannieristic background.
Review of The Way We Laughed
