Aprile

Most filmmakers don't use themselves and their families in such a shamelessly autobiographical fashion as Nanni Moretti. You could call him brave or, if a detractor, perhaps just lazy. I mean, it must be easy to regurgitate your life on screen in a quasi-documentary fashion except that Moretti is one of the smartest and funniest filmmakers ever to have come out of Italy and the shamelessly autobiographical "Aprile" is a small gem, (it's only 75 minutes long).

Moretti himself plays a film director called Nanni, planning to shoot a musical but finds he can't while his wife, played by real-life wife Silvia Nono, is pregnant, so instead he chooses to make a documentary on the Italian elections. "Aprile" itself isn't a documentary but a very charming if hugely self-indulgent comedy on the director's life. It is, in its way, another "Dear Diary" with its tongue lodged firmly in its cheek. How you respond to it, of course, will depend on how you respond to Moretti. I love him and am happy to take almost anything he sends my way. He may be indulgent but he's certainly a lot funnier and more likeable than Roberto Benigni, (he's closer to being an Italian Woody Allen). When I wasn't laughing out loud, which was frequently, I had a permanent smile on my face. See this.

Bore, bore, bore... We've seen it all elsewhere. Nothing was funny, nothing was new. The only 5 minutes worth watching were those showing an overcrowded rusty ship, heavy with Albanian immigrants arriving to Venice. I wish this subject had been developed further, but it wasn't. Instead we have a silly film director who does not know what he wants until he has a son and appreciates the joy of life. How true, but how banal, who cares, we all know it...

I did think it a little unkind that Silvio Berlusconi didn't get a credit here. He features enough - on television or by reputation! It's against the backdrop of the 1996 Italian elections that Nanni Moretti attempts to focus on two significant events in his life. Marginally more important is the birth of his first child, but that's only slightly ahead of his planned documentary about the aforementioned elections. Now this documentary wasn't his first choice. He was initially intent on making a musical, or some sort of revue, but now set on his new course he suffers from a director's block. The crew are poised but his brain is stalled. He's completely perplexed as he must juggle his priorities. He's man of the political left so his documentary planning is also fuelling his disdain for the future of politics in his country... Bluntly, he's between a rock and a very hard place. It's quirky and comical this film whilst taking a few free swipes at people generally out of their depth whether that be about fatherhood, politics or filmmaking. The last five minutes are maybe just a little predictably surreal and Moretti does rather monopolise the screen, but the jolly score and entertaining dialogue make for an enjoyable, if admittedly forgettable, eighty minutes of frustrated mayhem.

First of all I must admit I like all things Italian. Consequently, I laughed a lot, was moved, and obviously felt identified with the protagonist, director, factotum Moretti. But overall I felt this film was a political disappointment. If he were truly a political man, he could NEVER turn into musicals! Period.

Such a cleansed, ideologically perverse genre is incompatible with a) political conscience b) brains.

OK, we don't always want to "save the world" or discuss hefty topics (like French cinema), but I find musicals a distasteful, tacky aesthetic option. That is why I felt so disappointed with Nanni.

I feel he has the potential to be a great director, a "beacon" of intelligent but not haughty film-making. Like Woody Allen, for instance. (I saw Caro Diario twice on cinemas, in spite of his long "tempos" at "Islands"). Instead, he makes the jokes too long, overacts, is outright stupid when coming up with nonsense while "doing the documentary".

By the way, I'd LOVE a life in which "shooting a documentary" were "duty". I wonder what "pleasure" would have to be :)! The inclusion of his baby and family may serve his a purpose, but I found it irrelevant at best.

Overall, I would like him to be the powerful director who could shoot this scene with the ship full of Albanians and piano music, touching without pounding a "message".

I'm afraid he would rather take the "playful/ escapist" way. It is very common in people dedicated to "the arts" (even the most brilliant, like Woody). But very frustrating to "us, social scientists".

Whichever our "rank"!

Conclusion: "If I could", I would say to him THE SAME HE SAYS TO HIS political CANDIDATES when facing Berlusconi on TV: "React! Say something!"

A musical will never tell any moving human story, nor be beautiful.

Allen makes a GREAT missile/ pun on them in "Match Point" (when the silly wife loves them, and the couple goes just after he misbehave a bit . He deems them SO irrelevant you only hear it for a second :). THAT is intelligent cinema!

Whether mine or the movie's I'm not sure. In any case, when I saw this movie in Buenos Aires on its theatrical release, I was kind of disappointed. I'd seen _Caro Diario_ just a little earlier and thought that _Aprile_ lacked the freshness of the earlier movie. Plus, I found the stuff about Berlusconi and the elections kind of boring.

But after having seen most of Moretti's other movies, I took another look at _Aprile_ and realized that it's a wise and moving--if occasionally annoying--piece of work, after all. Certainly no less an achievement than _Caro Diario_ or _The Son's Room_. And if, like me, you've seen other Moretti movies, you realize that things that might seem incoherent on first viewing, such as musicals about dancing pastry chefs, are in fact long-time obsessions.

In his movies, Moretti's character is always surrounded by people: fellow leftists, old friends, family, parishioners, patients, and so on. But despite all these social ties, there's also a basic solitude that Moretti explores in his movies. I think that's why I like them.

Oh, and one more thing: he always makes Italy look gorgeous.