Canone inverso - Making Love

Fabio Cianchetti's photography, Hans Matheson's passion and Ennio Morricone's music can't save this one... Sloppy direction and impossible age differences riddle this entangled plot and, eventually sink it. What remains is Beautiful locations in Czeck Republic, a few well handled minor roles (Giordano, Prodan and Pappalardo), and the conviction that music and love are twins. What Mr. Maurensig the author of the original, fine Novel thought of this cinematic spaghetti is a mystery.... we have our opinion. Nonetheless, if you are at a loss for cinema viewing and are a lover of pretty faces and Violin music... well, maybe "Canone Inverso" by director/actor(?!) Ricky Tognazzi, son-it appears of the great Ugo Tognazzi, will suit you quite nicely!

I consider it one of the best movies in the history of Italian cinema. The book is very beautiful and the Director Ricky Tognazzi as been able to trasform the book in a masterpiece of cinema. You can feel love beetwen the man and the woman, and beetween friends and brothers, you can feel love for music. It's very dramatic and intense. Hans Matheson is the best actor, but Melanie Thierry is so a loving woman. All actors are very clever. It's a film that moves people towards love. Love is the centre of existence. This film is for all lovers.

Saw this at the Jerusalem Film Festival 2000, and this was the worst European movie I saw this year. It has a ridiculous plot, silly twists, English actors who portray in English characters that would speak Czech and German shot somewhere in the Czech Republic. The only time someone speaks the language they should is when a German soldier is shouting "get away from here!"... Has subtle yet very strange gay-erotic undertones - and that is between two characters that end up being brothers! - very uninspiring acting and very badly written characters. Some actors do not look their character's age and if you really try and create the geneology of this broken family - you would come to some very strange conclusions (I refer you to the fact that Jeno's mother has a second child when he is about 20 yet she looks not a day over 25, Sophie looks like 13 years old but married to a guy over 40 and Jeno meets her when he is about 18, Costanza was born in a concentration camp (?!) and in 1974 looks like 21 instead of over 30 and so on). This is an example of what happens when good talents try to create a film that would sell "internationally", i.e. will be sold under the American distribution system. You get a horrible muddled plot spoken i the wrong language and shot in the best/worst way Italian manure can be shot in. It is artistically for the ignorant who won't even notice that the Cannon Inverso is not truly an inversed canon.. Now how dumn is that?! Avoid unless you want to see beautiful shooting locations. The music is OK but gets the standard not-more-than-2-minutes-a-piece-please attitude. A shame to the amazing legacy of Italian film making.

I saw this movie at the East Bay Jewish Film Festival in March. The Director of the festival commented while introducing the film that a) it was one of the best movies he had ever seen (which, you always say to yourself OK, prove it) and b) that unfortunately the movie company that made it, went bankrupt, so he had gotten extremely lucky and found the movie in a European used DVD movie bin. So, don't go looking for it on your favorite streaming service or library. You won't find it. That said, when the movie finished, I just sat there. I realized, as had everyone that had seen it in my row, that we had seen one hell of a movie. Not only a great love story, but wonderful music. You can listen to some of the music on YouTube, but if you are lucky enough to find it somewhere, don't miss it. Forget what some people have said, Oh..............its not in Czech or Italian, doesn't matter. 10/10 for me

...but not more. few great virtues - from photography to few performances, especially Hans Matheson - but the fog of soap opera kills many good points. short, it is unconvincing. one of romantic stories, dramatic, interesting but lost in pink water of a sort of too sweet fairy tale. and only problem remains its potential. sacrificed by director for a sort of easy story for large, large public. the good things - Mr Tognazzi gives chance to live to few scenes who transforms the film in a good memory. sure, a beautiful film. but it could be a real good film. it deserves that.