OnePlusOne

Released in the same year as film version of Peter Shaffer's stage play Amadeus. Pupi Avati's Mozart film shares little with the grandiose epic of Milos Forman. Perhaps it only really shares it's loose relation to historical facts. But where Forman drives home Shaffer's story with absolute confidence and dramatic certainty, Avati threads gently around the historic persona and in reality makes a film about childhood in general rather than Mozart in particular. The focus of the story is that last summer, those last few weeks of childhood. Avati tells his story as Mozart is fourteen years old spending time at Count Pallavicini's summer estate outside Bologna, before an important exam at the Philharmonic Academy. Mozart (Cristopher Davidson) is more taken by the subtle mysteries of the estate, the wonder of the surrounding woods and a friendship with the count's son Guiseppe (Dario Parisini). Perhaps it is not so much the woods in themselves as what they represent as they stand between the estate where Mozart studies and the house of the beautiful Antonia (Barbara Rebeschini), the young girl destined to marry Guiseppe. The young trio (the "three of us" of the title), form a loving friendship experiencing the awakening of adolescence together. Emotive as the subject matter is there are no big gestures in the film, the trio explores each other and their surroundings and find new emotions of love and camaraderie on the threshold of forming their own persona's in a place and time where the grown up world is both near and far at the same time. Avati's story and direction threats the subject with tenderness and elegance, employing lush 18th century milieu's, atmospheric ochre color schemed cinematography and lovingly pastiche Mozart music by Ritz Ortolani. In all this Avanti strays from overstating events, giving the story an equal sense of honest realism and lingering mystery. This is not a film about an exceptional, singular genius, but a film about a young boy.

Rolf Husbergs 1956 film Moln över Hellesta possibly takes its cue from Hitchcock's Rebecca as much as from its literary original by Margit Söderholm. Count Carl Anckarberg (Birger Malmsten) brings his fiancée Margareta Snellman (Anita Björk) home to his family estate for the first time. But ominous clouds are gathering in the form of a mysterious past. The count's previous fiancée drowned in the nearby lake seven years ago and as Margareta moves in to one of the guest rooms strange things begin to happen, someone is lurking in the shadows, seemingly intent on scaring her away from Hellesta. There is a ghostly face, nightly visits to her room and a near disastrous car mishap, she is even locked in the local church. Margareta learns that these incidents echo the events leading up to her predecessor's untimely death. There is even rumors about a curse, or a ghost haunting any fiancée of the count. And in the greenhouse even the roses never bloom… However, not easily discouraged the crafty Margareta embarks on her own investigation between the seemingly never-ending dinners, breakfasts and coffees of high society life. Can she solve the puzzle before it is too late and she becomes another casualty of the curse of Hellesta? All in all Husbergs film is certainly clichéd and it does move along at an all too pedestrian pace, but it's its virtually brimful of redeeming traits. For one the setting is marvelous, filmed at the beautiful Hofsta estate, in Björkvik, Södermanland. Secondly Torbjörn Lundquist (known for his music for the thrillers of Arne Mattsson) supplies a lovely score. Furthermore the cast is highly amiable, and especially Anita Björk excels as the fearless amateur detective. Birgitta Andersson has an early supporting role as the friend of the dead fiancée, and does a colorful job with a small part. Bullen Berglund and Sif Ruud also bring their typical charm to the film. A minor criticism would be that Malmsten is perhaps a bit on the woody side to be a believable romantic interest for the adventurous Björk, but all in all his performance is adequate. To sum it up, Moln över Hellesta exceeds it limitations on pure charm and the beauty of the scenery to make it an attractive little piece of matinée thrills.

In this American-abroad-in-peril the quite breathtakingly beautiful Shirley Jones plays a young secretary who arrives in Italy with Britton insurance agent George Sanders (noless!) to evaluate the stunning estate of Count Paolo Barbarelli (played with merit but without real imagination by Rossano Brazzi). She soon finds herself more interested in the clichéd aristocrat charms of the Count than in his art collection. However all is not as it seems, and sneaking around the house is the Counts eerie daughter, allegedly traumatized after the death of her mother in an accident a few years back. Questions mount and plot thickens as Shirley pursues a friendship with the girl, and roams around the big estate where a mystery seems hidden within the architecture it self. All in all this is an entertaining romp for those with a taste for stylish Hitchcockian thrillers of the 60's, and what it lacks in originality it makes up for in the charm of the cast, good paced direction and lavish imagery.