Ricordati di me

Yesterday I saw this excellent movie, and it is still lingering in my brain and my soul.

I merely liked, not loved, Gabriele Muccino's smash Italian hit L'Ultimo Bacio when I saw it, since its depiction of thirtysomething doubts and fears left a sort of slightly fake aftertaste in my mouth. Plus, it waned out of my mind in a couple of hours, even though I had enjoyed while I was in the theatre.

Ricordati Di Me is a very, very different deal. It's a delicate, multi-faceted, true and touching punch in your stomach.

Well written and well played - especially by the extremely skillful and absolutely charming Fabrizio Bentivoglio, who's one of Italy's most gifted thesps as well as the longtime boyfriend of Rain Man's Valeria Golino (here you see him pouring his heart out onscreen with painful, searing directness) - the movie brings you into the home of a dysfunctional Italian family not dissimilar from so many dysfunctional Italian families.

Meet them: there is the melancholic, romantic, slightly frustrated husband Carlo (played by Bentivoglio), who's an obscure white-collar worker who once wanted to be a writer and keeps a sensitivity that leaves him totally exposed to raw emotions and to the eventual unfair blow of fate, all of this while keeping as well a still-unfinished novel in one of his drawers; then there is his VERY frustrated teacher wife (played by the ever-classy Laura Morante), who once wanted to be a stage actress. They've got two teenage kids, one of them a vain and egotistical 18-year-old daughter, keen on only one thing, i.e. becoming a TV starlet (played by stunning newcomer Nicoletta Romanoff), and the other one a vaguely leftish, pot-smoking daydreamer senior high schooler son (played by the director's brother).

Nothing new or revolutionary here, be sure of that, but the whole tale elaborated by Gabriele Muccino about the emotional disintegration of this apparently average family is narrated with passion and participation, both by its writer-director and by the actors.

The foursome meet enormous difficulties in communicating with each other - not only the parents with their children do, but also each of them with any other one, and egotism and indifference run rampant, especially in the veins of Valentina, the young daughter, who's a truly upsetting spectacle to watch, what with her relentless pursuing of a tinsel world, a world made of garish make-up, TV studios and squalid sex relationships with one or the other TV beefcake idol, since this girl, while still looking very innocent on the outside, would do anything to be cast in some cheesy TV show as one of the decorative babes who strut and grind in the background.

So, when you see Carlo, the husband, falling again - after many years - for married and unsatisfied mother of two Alessia (the ever-stunning Monica Bellucci, here way more expressive and intense than usual), an old flame of his youth, you just cannot think, not even for a second, of him as a middle-aged philanderer, or of Alessia as your typical homewrecker. The rekindling of their love is something so pure, so tender, so NEEDED by both these characters, that you can't help rooting for them - and be heartbroken when things just become spinning in a totally unpredicted direction, which I don't want to spoil for you.

I also truly appreciated the open ending, which leaves the audience enough room to imagine whatever they like for the future life of these characters, who've just been, anyway, through a journey able to break - once and for all - the walls of hypochrisy that previously surrounded them.

Go and see this movie, you won't regret it.

"Remember my Name", directed by Gabriele Muccino, kept reminding this viewer about his previous film, "The Last Kiss", because in both, the main characters at the center of each story are named Carlo and Giulia. Could this 2003 has anything to do with the other one? Or was it just a coincidence? We don't get any actual fact to tie both movies together, but in a way, the two movies deal with an inner crisis that the two Carlos must face and come to terms with.

This new film has a frenetic pace in the first hour. It seems as though Giulia and Carlo's relationship is strained, despite the somehow normal family life they lead. This is a film that asks a lot from its viewers, as they try to keep pace with the quick tempo Mr. Muccino gives the picture.

It's clear to see that things aren't exactly the best between husband and wife. Carlo is at a point in his life where he can't deal with a job he doesn't care about and Giulia wants to go back to an acting career that didn't materialize when she married Carlo. Valentina, the young daughter, wants to pursue a career in television where beauty and a fast friends view her as a desired commodity. Paolo, the son, is an uncool youth who wants to belong in a world he is not cut out for.

When the gorgeous Alissia enters the picture, Carlo can't resist seeing her again; they have been lovers before, but have lost track of each other in the succeeding years. Their relationship has a negative effect on both households, as Alissia is by now married, and Carlo loses his head when he decides to quit his job and renew his relationship with Alissia. When Carlo suffers a freak accident that sends him to the hospital for a long time, Giulia and the children rally to support him. In fact, this should be something to change Carlo's attitude in forgetting Alissia, but is it? We realize the accident and his gratitude to his wife and kids will be questioned again when we see him in the final moments of the film in the supermarket where he sees Alissia with her two young children as they make last minute Christmas preparations.

Fabrizio Bentivoglio makes us care for the complex Carlo, a man whose passion has been dormant for a long time. Laura Morante, plays Giulia, the woman who has to make choices and wants to keep everyone together. Monica Belucci is seen as Alissia, the one that never stopped loving Carlo.

The movie has a great look thanks to the camera work of Marcello Montarsi. The music by Paolo Buonvino is also an asset in the film. Gabriele Muccino, with this new movie proves to be an important voice in the Italian cinema today and we await for his new film with interest.

The only way this soap opera turned into a feature film could have redeemed itself would have been with a "Godfather"-like ending: all of the offending parties (and God knows this family was filled with nothing but 'tipi antipatici') would be liquidated at the very end, as just retribution for their total 'antipatia'. This movie has not a single character in it who is likable, which, I suppose, makes for an interesting cinematographic exercise: you'd like to get up and leave these horrible people to themselves and the screen, but you can't bring yourself to do it because you're hoping that the director will obliterate them for you at some point in the film.

In the dysfunctional Italian middle-class family Ristuccia, the middle-aged executive Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) has a stalled life without passion, bored in his work and having a monotonous life with his wife Giulia (Laura Morante). Giulia is a frustrated and hysterical woman because she gave up of being an actress in her youth to dedicate to the family. Their needy son Paolo (Silvio Muccino) feels lost and rejected, trying to find who he is and flirting with a schoolmate. Their seventeen years old daughter Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff) is decided to work in a television show, and is fighting to have an audition. When Carlo meets his former sweetheart Alessia (Monica Bellucci) in a class reunion, they confess to each other that their marriages are in crisis and both feel passion arising again. Meanwhile Giulia is invited to an audition in a stage production and to participate of a play. Paolo tries to make friends using marijuana in his birthday party, and Valentina has sex with different guys trying to be a dancer of the famous TV show 'Ali Babbi'. Their relationships change when Carlo has an accident.

Two years ago, I saw "L'Ultimo Bacio" on DVD, a beautiful and delightful movie about relationship in different phases of life directed by Gabriele Muccino. I was impressed with this director, and recently it was released "Recordati di me" on DVD in Brazil. I have just watched and it is amazing the sensibility of this director with the dynamics and feelings of a family, presenting a tale of passion, frustration and dreams. The realistic relationships between the members of this common middle-class family is disclosed though the lost dreams and passions of the parents, and the dreams and aspirations of their son and daughter. The cast is amazing, with a sensational Laura Morante, the stunning Monica Bellucci, the sexy Nicoletta Romanoff and the impressive Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Silvio Muccino, all of them perfect in their respective roles. This movie is recommended for those viewers that want to see a realistic, full of sentiments and never corny dramatic tale. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "No Limite das Emoções" ("In the Limit of the Emotions")

There's a strange sort of paradox at work in "Remember Me, My Love," an Italian film that seems to be operating under some bizarre inverse law of quantum physics. For while the movie itself moves at a breakneck pace, hurtling from one scene to another with near-reckless abandon, we can't help noticing that the faster it goes, the slower it seems. Perhaps, we simply wear ourselves out trying to keep up with it and it is this exhaustion factor that ultimately accounts for our restlessness and ennui.

"Remember Me, My Love" focuses on a family of four, whose members haven't been getting along too well of late. The parents, Carlo and Giulia, are both trying to find ways to cope with a bad case of middle aged crisis: he, by rekindling a romance with a beautiful former flame, and she, by pursuing the career in acting she abandoned when she became a wife and mother. Their children, Valentina and Paolo, are typical adolescents, all caught up in rebellion, identity crises and complicated affairs of the heart.

Although the film attempts to provide some insight into the complexities of modern family life, the characters come across as so whiny and self-indulgent that any sympathy they might have engendered on the part of the audience quickly turns to indifference and even irritation. The actors do their best (particularly Laura Morante as Giulia), but the characters they are called on to play never engage us much beyond the surface level. This lack of depth is further compounded by the whirlwind nature of the storytelling, which rarely allows the actors the time they need to settle down and work out the subtle nuances of their roles.

In all fairness, I must admit that, in the second hour, the film improves considerably, trafficking in some genuinely raw emotions that exemplify the devastating effects that a disintegrating marriage can have on all members of a family. Moreover, the film ends on a courageously inconclusive note, which goes a long way towards mitigating some of the theatricality and artificiality that permeate the rest of the movie.

Taken as a whole, "Remember Me, My Love" turns out to be much less than the sum of its parts, but the performances and a few good scenes do make it palatable.