El Otro Lado Del Amor

This ostensibly simple but ultimately haunting tale of a virginal teacher in search of a soul mate of proportions equal to the Latin and Greek verses he teaches captures the essence of selfless love, so very rare in male film protagonists since the invention of the Spaghetti Western (also Italian!).

Bookworm Neri Marcore is sent from Rome to Bologna by father Giancarlo Giannini (who's tailor to the Pope and well-versed extramaritally) to learn something about the opposite sex. And learn his son does when he meets the beautiful Vanessa Incontrada at a dance for the blind. But blindness turns out to be more than meets the eye when Vanessa's previous life catches up with them both.

Marcore's subtle performance is reminiscent of Chaplin at his most engaging and Olivier at his most nuanced, with Marcore's smile leaving an imprint long after the screen fades to black.

"Incantato (Il Cuore altrove)" is a beautiful looking film with an odd set-up and story line.

It's set in the Northern Italy of pre-World War II as that's about the last point one could have such naive characters, particularly the central man, a 35-year-old virgin classics teacher whose idea of love is what he's learned from the Latin poets.

He is a misfit everywhere - from his earthy family of Papal tailors, from beloved choruses because he sings too loudly, from his boarding housemates and their assignations, from the school administration about curriculum, and especially from women. He is under orders from his father, Giancarlo Giannini (in a virtual cameo whose comically vulgar language is not fully translated in the English subtitles), to get laid and get married, not with the same woman, so that he can follow dad's lifestyle in business, marriage and affairs.

He becomes infatuated with first one then another inappropriate woman, for opposite reasons. While he is sweet, and he wins over his students and all who he comes in contact with and his improbable courtships are charming to a point, but as we feel more and more sorry for him as we hope he won't but are sure he will end up in heart break, the movie just gets too unreservedly bittersweet.

The ending is simply a head-scratcher. The movie titles certainly don't help -- the original Italian title translates as "The Found Heart," while the U.S. title translates as "Enchanted" and neither is helpful to interpretation. (One member of the audience came to the movie not realizing it would be the same film she had already seen under the former title.)

The subtitles are not only annoyingly white on white, but put up both parts of a conversation at the same time.

There is a very excellent little cult movie cinema just near my house. I saw The Station Agent and A Heart Elsewhere (advertised name) tonight for $11Aus (bout $5US). The first was great, check it out, different style comedy. The second, A Heart Elsewhere, was a very interesting love tale.

The story is about Nelo; a 35year old virgin, intelligent and charming Italian. Nelo is sent to teach at and, more importantly, find a wife at a distant college. His father was scared of him becoming gay like his brother (Nelo's uncle). After a few failings he starts seeing an incredibly beautiful and blind women Angela.

The movie revolves around the emotions and the rationalising of the two leads. The 'easy', vengeful, slightly money hungry Angela, and the sensitive Nelo. Nelo is warned by by everyone he knows that Angela is a man eater. Indeed Angela's behaviour is sometimes questionable, but the motives remain unclear. A quote for an example shows 'Make sure they see us leave together. I want them to see us. Why is Angela acting this way? The movie draws you into the two characters and their world.

I saw this as a date movie with my girlfriend at the time. But it's not just a romance movie. It's an interesting look at a number of concepts. The idea of love in general, a broken person only able to find love in another broken person. The way in which blindness was treated. It wasn't a love story in the champagne and strawberries and heart warming sense. It was a true life story.

Also, the scenery of the movie was breath taking. Each room in the movie had these spectacular murals and the shear beauty of the movie 'scenes' was like watching a moving painting. Even Angela is referred to as a painting within the movie. A comment that is very fitting towards her beauty.

With all that in mind, it's not for everyone. If you generally like your blockbuster actions or your Bridgette Jones's romances, you may not like this. If you do like a little class, and a thoughtful, left of norm, tear jerker love story. This is it.

One note. White subtitles on white. One day they will stop this annoying habit, but not yet!

Overall: 6/10 for general audience. 9/10 for targeted audience.

Pupi Avati is one of the best current directors working in the Italian Cinema. He is an original. His stories are never boring and he has the talent to create a stir among his viewers.

There is a role reversal here. Nello, the young Latin and Greek professor, has never known love, nor has he pursued it before. He meets and falls in love with Angela, the rich society girl that is temporarily blind. Little does Nello knows what he is getting into. Angela wants a vendetta against the real love of her life, who has abandoned her, when she loses her sight, for another.

The irony of the story is that Nello, even though he can see, is in reality the blind one, and it is Angela, the blind one, who will go to extremes to use him until she achieves the revenge she wants, except that at one point, she comes to realize that Nello adores her, but it's too late because then all she wants is to go ahead with an operation that might restore her eyesight.

Neri Marcore, is perfect as Nello. He makes us believe he is the awkward and naive Nello. Giancarlo Giannini is Cesare, Nello's father, who cheats on his wife, shamelessly. Vanessa Incontrada is perhaps the weakest of the principals since it appears this is her first appearance in a film.

Pupi Avati delivers another film that is well crafted and makes one think.

"Il cuore altrove" is a great film.

Great because it shows everyday life from extraordinary points of view.

Great because it tells about how ordinary people can do wonderful things, and shy people can be brave, in the name of love.

Great because it proves that you can put together a talented comic-cabaret actor (Neri Marcorè) and a showgirl (Vanessa Incontrada) and here it is: an unusual, but wonderful couple of actors for a surely unusual, but wonderful love story.

Great because it is able to convince you that very talented and experimented actors like Giancarlo Giannini or Giulio Bosetti are even more talented than you thought.

Great because it provides a touching insight of a town that everybody should be allowed to visit once in a lifetime.

Great because it makes you laugh and cry at the same time and very few films are still able to do it nowadays.

Even if, out of Italy, you won't be able to understand its spirit fully, please try to see it. You won't regret.