Padre e hijo

I've got to say that this film had touched me so much in both simple and extraordinary ways. There are lots of drama movies out there whose theme seems to rust off compared to this one, and I proclaim to be heart-touched. Le Chiavi di Casa or also known as The keys to the house, had made the most authentic impact to our modern lives. The story runs with to main characters of Gianni (Kim Rossi Stuart) and Paolo (Andrea Rossi), whose relationship are embraced by new encounter of a father and son relationship. Gianni who haven't met his son since her wife died of giving birth to Paolo had found a chance to finally meet him. Paolo on the other hand who suffered a mildly intricate condition of being handicapped attempts to forge as well a connection with his father he never met before (and I never imagined that Andrea Rossi did really suffered a real life Muscular Dystrophy—which fitted him in the role, and thanks to the part of Gianni Amelio who earned and molded Andrea's confidence). The eloquence of the story showed the archetypal impact between a young father who haven't seen his son and tries to build unyielding relationship with a son by ways of bidding his entire life to the only family he got—Paolo.

Though the original copy of this movie sold for an expensive rate of price in our place, I would really love to spend my time watching movie with explicit sincerity and magnificence. Le Chiavi de Casa had proved not only my money but as well my time and heart worthwhile.

Story about love, duty and the shadows of past. About the touch of two different worlds, about a child and his father and the forms of beauty and freedom. A movie about essential things of passing days and the heart of words, images and appearances. A film of an actor, the impressive Andrea Rossi, delicate, expressive, natural. Basic, manifesto for understand a disease. In fact, lesson about the science to discover the other. About the way for be yourself. A film as a water. Colors, nuances, gravel. And subtle interpretation of Charlotte Rampling, the strain of Stuart Rossi's character and the gestures of special star - Andrea Rossi. Touching, profound and natural. A movie like a time of world's contemplation in deep silence. As walk on the beach in the evening. Or a time of talk with your feelings.

This is the first Amelio movie to be released in the US, at least in a Film Festival setting, in over ten years since Lamerica. But the director's style is still memorable. The camera scans slowly the lost faces of the actors without pity or shame. There is no plastic, no trinkets, no nudging at the spectator. We are there watching and not, it's not really as straightforward as we'd want it.

As in "Stolen Children" or "Lamerica", the main character ambles on scene, uncertain of his role in the life of others or just very mistaken. It learns--maybe, the hard way, one feeling at the time. Kim Rossi Stuart takes the place of Enrico Lo Verso, with a similar style, eyes lost and the silence prevailing over revelatory dialog, but the star is his son in the movie, Andrea Rossi There are no cheap shot. There is no need to. Piety, compassion come from something deeper, and Amelio definitely gets to the grittier level of human emotion. Charlotte Rampling has an amazing role, as the mother of young handicapped woman and the symbolic chorus for the interior dialog of the protagonist. And the dialog is pure and scary as it can be.

It's refreshing to see such moving work that skillfully avoids all the traps of classic Hollywood tearjerkers. The movie reminded me rather of Kenzaburo Oe's "Teach Us to Outgrow our Madness", but it's actually inspired to Giuseppe Pontiggia's "Nati due Volte" (Born Twice), and Amelio pays homage both to the writer and the book in the course of the movie.

Gianni (Kim Rossi Stuart) has never seen his son Paolo, who is disabled. But Fate makes them meet, Gianni accompanies him to Germany where the child can follow a new therapy... It is also a trip where the young father tries to catch up with the relationship with his son. In hospital Gianni meets a woman (Charlotte Rampling) who has a also a disabled daughter, a woman which teaches him very much about accepting differences.

Gianni Amelio doesn't direct a spectacular movie about handicap (it's not like "Rain Man"), he directs a road movie which seems sometimes (from a technical point of view) a documentary. There's not room for too many tears, dramas and moralistic considerations. It's a pretty film which has the goal of showing problems the way they are, without exaggerations. There's much reality and humanity.

Director Gianni Amelio coaxed a wonderful performance from Andrea Rossi in this film - his lines were fed to him by the director, allowing this young non-actor to appear spontaneous. His charm and his stubbornness were powerful and endearing, and it would seem that it was the boy's real character and personality that were being very gently and cleverly allowed to shine.

Apart from Andrea Rossi, the strength of the film lay with Charlotte Rampling - although her part was a supporting role, her intelligence and dignity made a strong impact, and you wished that she would be there to counsel and guide Gianni through future events that he would perhaps not handle too well. She has matured into a very fine actress indeed, and one hopes that she will get the kind of roles she deserves in the future.

My first thought was that Kim Rossi-Stuart wasn't a good choice for the lead - good-looking certainly, but way too wooden an actor to carry a role as demanding as that of Gianni. On reflection, however, I wondered if casting an actor who appeared to have very little to give his role emotionally was deliberate, because it wasn't hard to believe that this was a man who deserted his son at his birth. Even when he slowly began to warm to his son, and we knew he desperately wanted to help, he was still awkward as he tried to compensate for his instinctive emotional detachment.

When he took his son from the hospital - clearly before his round of treatment was completed (this would certainly have to be an ongoing routine for Paolo) - this was not the action of a responsible, loving father but an act of rebellion from an immature man who couldn't, or wouldn't, see that the painful procedures were the only hope for some small improvement in Paolo's condition, and something that the boy himself accepted and participated in, however much he hated it.

Taking Paolo to Norway to visit his "girlfriend" Kristine was not an act of kindness, but one of insensitivity - in earlier scenes, although Paolo spoke of one day marrying her, he also had all sorts of excuses for not being able to meet her. Clearly, he was able to understand what his father could not - that she may reject him when she realised that he was not like other boys; yet he trusted his father enough to take the chance. It was when Gianni threw away his walking stick that I felt he had made very little progress from the boy who couldn't face up to his responsibilities to his motherless son - he was acting less from a desire to help Paolo walk on his own than he was trying to pretend that the boy's disabilities could be cured by an act of will and that he would one day be more like a "normal" son. This was explored further during the driving scene - having told Nicole earlier that Paolo didn't know how to construct boundaries, he encouraged him to think that he could drive and was then shattered when he realised the extent to which his son could at times fail to recognise the limitations that would always confront him. Was Paolo himself unconsciously trying to teach his father a lesson by behaving in the same irresponsible way that Gianni had been?

The ending of the film therefore presented us with two possibilities - Gianni's newly-awakened love might lead him to a new sense of maturity and responsibility if he could accept that love was not going to be a miracle cure, or he just might once again abandon his child to others. For Paolo's sake and his father's too, I'd like to think that Gianni would have developed a new perspective on his physical and emotional journey with his difficult and beautiful son.