pietro-marcello Reviews

The Concert (2009)

Historical accuracy anyone?

[6/10 · 7 February 2010]

This is a funny movie, provided that you enter the cinema with enough common sense to discern the stereotype and the historical falsification from the truth.

I mean, I know very little of Russian/Soviet history, but as soon as the plot involved Breznev sending hebrew russians into Gulags in 1980, my internal "historical falsification alarm" started ringing very loudly. I mean, I was 12 in 1980 and never heard of Gulags going on by then, (and I live in a NATO country).

I understand that the writer/director knows this too and takes for granted that it is such a blatant falsification that the audience will take it as a farce, but I am afraid that actually the average TV-brainwashed 20-year-old viewer with no critical sense will exit the cinema thinking: "see, my prime minister was right... communists were still eating babies not longer than 30 years ago".

Also you need to suspend your sense of disbilief.. I know little of how to play classical music but I guess that even if you take the best players in the world and have them play one piece without even having had a single rehearse before, the results would be terrible. Beside this, this is a funny movie with good acting and directing, and a wonderful piece of music at the end, I am going to listen to more Tchaikovsky in the future!

Tutta la vita davanti (2008)

This movie has heart

[9/10 · 6 April 2008]

Preamble for you foreign viewers: this movie is about the so called "permatemps"; that's temporary workers who effectively do the job of a permanent worker, but can be fired anytime and have no benefits at all. In the last 5-6 years in Italy, temporary job laws were introduced and had a devastating effect on society, especially on younger generations.

Finally a movie with heart about temporary workers, very well written and directed. You will be taken through the odyssey of Marta, a young graduate in philosophy who cannot find any job related to her studies, so to keep herself alive, she has to take a temporary job as a telephone-marketer.

While in the process of descending this inferno, she will get in touch with a wide spectrum of persons and situations, that will keep you interested in the story.

The writer/director does a very good job in building the story, you will really care for all the characters, even the two villains, who by the end of the movie show their human side.

My only remark to the script is when Marta engages in a totally gratuitous sex act that is very clichè, and the fact that the story does not really tackle with all the problems that a temporary worker has to face in Italy, mainly the inability to get any mortgage to buy a house, or the mandatory periods of time when the worker is left home without pay and then hired again later through a different mediating agency, which is the standard workaround to avoid the rather feeble restrictions imposed by the law.

Overall, this is a great movie that I recommend, it is an universal story about the de-humanization of people, that every viewer in the western world will feel connected to. Yet it still manages to be funny at times and rather moving.

The Meaning of Life (1983)

the meaning of life?

[8/10 · 10 March 2008]

Be warned: this movie has its hilarious moments but it is also sooo very cynical. Actually the more times I see it, the more I see its misanthropic and dark side and it's becoming a bit disturbing.

Besided the funny jokes, some of which are really genius, in my opinion what the pythons try to say here is that there is no meaning of life.

Some of the sketches are about religion (christian/catholics in particular) that may be OK, but in this movie sometimes I get the awful feeling that they are poking fun directly at the very Almighty. Be prepared to that.

Beside that, this movie has its shining moments, especially the sexual education sketch, and the "special feature" intro.

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Bloody Marvellous

[2/10 · 5 March 2008]

This movie changed my life. Ah the blood, the gore, the random executions... what can a viewer ask for more. I just could not wait for that psycho killer to shoot another man. And that old sheriff... he delivers such clever philosophic thoughts there. I will treasure them for the rest of my life.

And I also like the accurate depiction of Mexicans: nearly every Mexican in this movie is either a drug dealer or a hired gun; well there is also the other type of Mexican, i.e. street guitarists in sombreros. Then, I did not know that Mexico had hospitals, but strangely we can't see any Mexican doctors; could it be because they are too busy with their other job as drug dealers?

And the reality factor is great too: the psycho killer is free to move around Texas killing men by the dozens without ever encountering a police roadblock. He also finds a clever use for this compressed-air pistol, which also seems to give no backlash at all when used to shoot out key locks from doors... think of the great work those engineers must have done to bend the laws of physics that way.

Seriously, the things that this movie has taught me, are:

1) Oscar prizes mean nothing.

2) most people think "if it won an Oscar, it MUST be good"

3) Some people find amusing to watch other people being slaughtered and have no objection at all to that. That's what scares me the most.

I give this movie two stars for the good acting and filming, but otherwise it is just another step in the planned de-humanization of the western people.

I am really, really sorry that I wasted my 7 euros on this.