Il contagio

This follows the various lives of a large extended italian family. And their neighbors. And friends. And lovers. Some of them are not so nice. Everyone is addicted to something... drugs. Or sex. Money. Power. Some of them owe large amounts of money that they don't have. We know it's not going to end well. It's mostly good. Good buildup of the various people and what their stories are. The apartment building plays a role all by itself... the place where neighbors interact, and what happens behind the closed doors. The ending is more melo-dramatic than it needs to be, but it's mostly good. Based on the book by walter siti.

It belongs in the genre of films where the gay characters are ultimately sad and unfulfilled. And while American gay movies seem to have moved on, other countries aren't there yet. And as such it's far above average. The thing I find so refreshing about foreign films is the lack of the need to explain. The viewer is tasked with putting it all together, which makes it a very personal thing open to wide interpretation. We are tasked with filling in the gaps. This is no easy film. I did feel like it overplayed it's hand a bit which is why my rating isn't higher. And I'm kind of over the sad homosexual genre of film.

Well acted....decent production values, but the story is depressing. It can be summed up in the subject line. What the director has given us are two attractive leads who we pity more than like. I thought films were supposed to help us escape our own dull, pitiful lives. Here we see an amplification of our lives. Perhaps, the message of the movie is to show how destructive alcohol and especially cocaine are. I personally didn't need any external proof, since I've seen it firsthand in my own family. It would be more helpful to show how genetics plays a vital role in determining who gets addicted and who doesn't.

The movie is certainly visually nice to watch. The opening scene, and exposition of the apartment house and its various inhabitants is terrifically filmed. Almost worth watching for that scene.

But the story is ugly. A low cost, low class apartment house is the setting of a tawdry tale of crime and passion. Unfortunately, the passion is focused mostly on money and drugs.

A new couple moved into an apartment on the third floor, and become entwined with the other residents. But the friendship that develops between Mauro and Marcello perplexed me. Although it seems to be a central line of the film, I couldn't figure out what Mauro possibly saw in an unemployed parasite that had basically nothing going for him.

Some of the colorful characters are developed in the first half of the movie, but mostly fade out in the latter half. I suppose they were there to establish backgrounds for the main characters. I started to wonder why they were so prominent early on, but completely vanished later on, because the actually did add a lot of color to the film.

The acting was very good throughout. But the story was just so ugly that while I'd give the production values and acting a 9, I just disliked the characters and story to the point that it dragged me down to a mere 5. Take it or leave it.