15 Amore

Saw 15 Amore at Taos TTPIX Festival and everyone in the audience agreed with me that it was the best thing we saw all day! A true movie of the heart - we laughed, we cried, we sang opera! Maurice Murphy is a charming man with many stories to tell, and it was a pleasure to spend time talking with him. This film deserves a wide release, and people deserve the opportunity to view it...over and over.

This delightful film set in the 2nd World War is based on a true story. While it was made in 1998 it wasn't released into Australian cinemas until 2000. Why it was left this long will always be a mystery to me.

Australian films, of late, have been fairly well received comedies, and this was a blessed diversion from froth and bubble to a serious but light film. It manages to capture the oppressive beauty and harshness of the Australian outback without jamming it down your throat and takes its time in telling the story, instead of rushing - which is, I feel, a typical Australian story telling style.

Outstanding performances from leads Lisa Hensley and Steve Bastoni whose characters sizzle with sexual tension.

Well worth seeking out!

What is wrong with the Australian film industry? Why wasn't this movie released in the cinemas? Okay, it wasn't great, had a few flaws but the heart of the story is what really mattered. Dorothy (Hensley) and her three young children have a farm to care for while dear daddy is out fighting the Second World War. Along come Alfredo (Bastoni) and Joseph (Galati), two Italian prisoners of war posted on Dorothy's land to help her with the chores. Joining them are two Jewish women from the Motherland, Germany. What blossoms is a relationship of mutual understanding and humanity while out in the battlefield men are killing each other. The main thrust of the story is the romance that isn't, between Dorothy and Joseph which is handled with respect and honesty. To fill in the gaps we have small comic antidotes based on the memories of little boy Brendan. Story falls apart near end but by that stage you had enough to enjoy.

I saw this film at it's opening at the Keno in the soffitel Hotel in Melbourne and it was the best movie I have ever seen! The film is great with beautiful photography and insightful music. I think that Steve Bastoni was fantastic in the film and without him the movie would not be right. I give this movie 10 out of 10. If you haven't seen this movie I recommend that you see it as soon as possible!

There's some things to like about this film, especially the beautiful sets and the photography. It's a wonderful idea (true story?), too, bringing together the main players who have all lost something in an oasis of calm outside the raging global war.

We are presented, in part, with a lilting, lyrical depiction of this little paradise that provides safe haven to them all. The photography gives us golden light and sweeping movements, landscape and close-ups of insects to show the "oneness" and interconnectedness of it all, reinforced by a romantic score.

Unfortunately, the jerky, episodic vignettes that are supposed to set the scene and the clunky dialogue provide many jarring moments. The film gradually descends into Mills & Boon romantic schlock, whether it's Steve Bastoni's Alfredo grindingly and palpably resisting temptation with Lisa Hensley's Dorothy, or Joseph and Rachel (played by Domenic Galati and Tara Jakszewicz) engaging in somehow unbelievable carnal acts in the pine needles (do they really cause a rash?).

With the exception of Steve Bastoni and Domenic Galati, the performances were distinctly unconvincing. Lisa Hensley has obvious trouble striking a balance between her character's earth mother approach to all the creatures in her care and the "British" reserve that is clearly supposed to contrast with the passionate Italians and the bitter German in the form of Madame Gutman (why Madame if she's German?). The end result is that she just sounds constipated. And I can't believe that I read a review that claims that the film doesn't fall into the trap of characters representing national stereotypes! Are we talking about the same film?

As for Rachel's German accent...........

The climactic seen where Madame Gutman denounces Alfredo and Joseph to the ineptly played military police is just pure soap, confused and utterly adrift. Silly, in fact.

Maybe the simplistic depiction of the characters and events was meant to represent the narrator's childish recollections, but that fails to explain how the child was able to accurately know or observe the emotional trauma and struggles that his characters were going through.

As I said, a nice idea and often pretty to watch but, on the whole, clunky and jarring.