Te amaré eternamente

Years and years ago, Pier Paolo Pasolini would have solved this 116 minutes film with one sentence: "Death does not mean a lack of communication; it is the impossibility of being understood."

And while this concept (twisted, distorted, disfigured) still remains interesting enough, Tornatore's prolix (plain redundant right there in the middle) writing swings between borderline creepy and full-on cheesy.

Among the tear-jerking treacle, his pseudo-philosophical, re-adjusted to the contingency, take on astronomy -- dead stars and all -- is accurate and poetic enough, and really the only element (almost) giving the movie an appearance of tightness, thickness and consistency in its back and forth, back and forth rhythm.

I love Tornatore, but not for films like this one. It is missing the bittersweet humor of his other films, and the musical score by Morricone is not very memorable. That is already a bad combination. This is the 11th film of Tornatore that I am reviewing in succession, and it ranks in 11th place; that should give you a clue.

If you liked "You've Got Mail" with Tom Hanks, you will not like this film because it has none of the humor of the Hanks film. It is a series of tedius, and eventually, boring exchanges between Ededededededed and the female leading character's name I have already forgotten.

Her occupation was interesting; she was a stuntwoman, and the only interesting parts of the film are her stunts, but they are not enough to hold up this miss. Don't bother with this one; watch ANY of his first ten films; they are ALL better.

What do you need in order to create a movie in the inverted order from the usual story line: the one that starts with the line "From death do us part" and ends with the line "They lived happily ever after"?

The answer is simple: You need a mastermind like Giuseppe Tornatore. A mind capable of inventing such interesting story, told through inspirational dialogues and intriguing plot.

The final product entitled "The Correspondence" is equally impressive as an independent piece of art, as well as a juxtaposing part of Tornatore's previous movie "The Best Offer". The beauty of comparing his recent films (written in English) lies in the opportunity to grasp the big picture. Both movies revolve around couples and involve prototypical males (rational yet highly emotional, thus men in touch with their feminine side) and prototypical females (fragile yet strong, thus women in touch with their masculine side). Both have impressive cast for the role of the men (Jeremy Irons / Geoffrey Rush) and expressive cast for the role of the women (Olga Kurylenko /Sylvia Hoeks). "The Best Offer" deals with the mysterious appearance of the female character, while "The Correspondence" seals the deal with the mysterious disappearance of the male character. The first speaks about losing oneself when finding the significant other, while the second movie speaks about finding oneself while losing the significant other.

Indeed, the theme of loss is ever-present in each frame and pixel of "The Correspondence". Someone might wonder if something so void and devoid of any words, something as ineffable as loss could ever be explained through words? It can and it ought to be, since the communication is the purest form of connection between a man and a woman, a marriage of their ideas, an ideal in itself, an open door to the deepest human connection. As long as we perceive the words spoken outside of our heads (in the books, songs or mouths of other people) as coded messages from the loved one, and as long we use all words existing inside of our heads as messages for our loved one, there will be connection. As such, the words are symbol of focus, of attention, and constant (re)invention of the significant other. Their presence signifies life, their absence – death (even in a symbolic manner) of the other.

Within this movie, the characters use words to reach to one another, somewhere, anywhere. With this movie the director uses words, to hopefully reach toward each one of us, everywhere. With this review, I use words, maybe also to reach to someone, somewhere, out there…

Biljana Gjoneska www.evermind.me

As compare to his former, exceptionally great, movies like Cinema Paradiso, The Legend of 1900, Malena, Sttano Tutti Bene(Everbodys Fine), Baaria, The Best Offer and The Unknown Women, his Correspondence is somewhat left me in depsair. His direction skills are peerless with impulse of emotions and feeling in most of his movies with touch of comedy. Correspondence is what i will call not a movie of Guissepe.

Watched 'Correspondence' for many reasons. The concept was intriguing and is hardly an outdated one. Ennio Morricone is one of cinema's best and most iconic composers, consider the likes of 'Cinema Paradiso', 'The Mission' and 'The Good, The Bad and the Ugly' particularly amazing. Do like some of Giuseppe Tornatore's other work, 'Cinema Paradiso' is a masterpiece. Also really like Olga Kurylenko and Jeremy Irons, am a fan of Irons actually.

Unfortunately, 'Correspondence' left me underwhelmed. It is not as bad as the critics made out from personal opinion (though do share most of their problems with it), but it is a case of a good concept but mixed bag/average execution so can understand too the disappointment. Should have been much better considering the amount of talent and potential involved, with all having done much better work (all before and none since).

The two best things about 'Correspondence' are Kurylenko and Irons. Kurylenko is the one who has to carry the film and found her performance very committed and heartfelt as the one character 'Correspondence' tries to properly develop. Irons matches her sympathetically and brings his usual gravitas and that wonderfully distinctive voice to Ed. Despite being apart almost all the time, corresponding through texts, emails and video messages, the chemistry between the two is believable in that one can feel that they're in love and the big age gap between them is nowhere near as creepy to me than it sounds.

'Correspondence' is beautifully filmed and makes the most of the locations. All of which look great, stunning in the case of Italy. Morricone's score is nowhere near among his best work, but is suitably hypnotic and understated. There were moments in the script, everything with Ed's job was somewhat interesting and actually from personal view Ed's final speech was quite poignant. Much of it though is down to Irons' delivery of it, like the rest of the film's voice overs (which did not have anywhere near the same amount of impact) when it comes to acting not many actors delivered voice overs and narrations in the same way Irons did.

However, 'Correspondence' does have a lot of problems. A major problem is that the script is very limp and very rarely sounds natural. That is including most of the voice overs, which tend to ramble. Tornatore's direction is pretty uninspired, nowhere near close to amateurish but the pace especially needed to be tighter and somehow it didn't feel like Tornatore, other films of his had more emotional impact, were more sweeping and weren't as "safe". The supporting characters were very bland and stock, and in the acting department Kurylenko and Irons were the only ones that stood out (do not remember the other performances at all).

It's the story and pace that fare worst. The pace is a vast majority of the time, well almost the whole film, very pedestrian and never really comes to life. Am certain that it was intended to be deliberate, but the script and story (performances too) needed to compel to make that not be a weakness and 'Correspondence' failed on all three. The story started off quite well but will admit to having lost interest under halfway through when the mystery aspect of the film came in, then the film became dull and episodic. Then from just over halfway through, it became increasingly duller and more preposterous, some of it for me bordered on confusing too.

Summing up, liked the concept but the film was wanting in too many areas. 5/10