Pain, Tulipes et Comédie

This is an enjoyable little Italian/Swiss production, that mostly gets carried by its characters.

The movie is sweet, little and innocent. In other words, perfect harmless entertainment. The movie feels warm and sincere, this is due to the setting of the movie (Venice) and its characters, that are all far from perfect but because of that also very humane and in this case also enjoyably quirky at times.

The movie is mostly comical with its characters. They are over-the-top but at the same time kept humane. It helps to make the movie an enjoyable one to watch and at the same time also keeps sure that the emotions of the movie feel real.

The movie features a nice story in which a married mother escapes her normal everyday life after she has been forgotten during a vacation by the tour bus. She decides to take advantage of the situation by hitchhiking to Venic, the city she always wanted to visit. perhaps for the first time ever in her life she feels herself alive and home somewhere, where she really can be herself. She decides to stay for a day but the day soon becomes days and the days weeks.

For a change the movie centrally features a love-story between 2 persons at age and not persons who are still in the prime of their life and are in their early 20's, or something. It's refreshing, dramatic more powerful and involving and in a way also sweeter.

Licia Maglietta is a good leading lady for the movie. and she forms a good couple with Bruno Ganz, who is halve Swiss, halve Italian and by far has the best lines of the movie, that almost sound poetic like. The rest of the supporting actors are mainly for the fun but everyone does a good job at portraying them.

The movie is however not the best made and constructed one. At times they simply choose not to show some of the dramatic responses and just cut away and goes forward in time or back to another location. In my opinion this is a sign of weakness of the film-maker's skills and it's also definitely due to the editing that the movie does not work out at all times.

Nevertheless, you should be able to appreciate and enjoy watching this movie.

7/10

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Bread and Tulips (2000)

A feel good movie that is also a good movie. It's beyond just warm and colorful, with scenes of Venice night and day, and beyond just triumphant, with true love winning in more ways than one. It is most of all populated with great characters. Italian leading lady Licia Maglietta is a wonder of naturalistic acting. She is sympathetic of course, but not a cliché. She plays a housewife on a diversion away from her family, and she looks and acts like a housewife. As strong as she is, and as independent, she is also devoted to her family. The fact she left them at all is perfectly unfolded as an accident that she turns into an opportunity, all by intuition.

The man she meets is no paradigm of handsome or charming, in fact he's just the opposite. But he is so inherently good, a really decent human being, she comes to like him, and look out for him. Played by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, he matches Maglietta's believable ease and imperfect, quiet intensity. The rest of the cast is truly supportive, and tips just slightly (or more than slightly in one case) into caricature, to reminds us, I suppose, that this is a movie, a fantasy, a comedy in many ways.

But it's also a deeply serious and moving love story between two middle-aged people who are ready for renewal.

I have a feeling many people, especially people with families or those conservative at heart, will find the basic premise of a woman leaving her family in a glib and almost carefree way and not going back for a long time to be shameful or even sinful. Her kids are normal distracted teenagers who like her when they notice her, her husband is a hardworking and loud businessman who doesn't beat her, her home is her own and comfortable. In other words, she has a really normal life, a good one by most measures. Does everyone have the right to up and leave a working family relationship because they feel a bit restless? Is this movie a worship of selfishness?

Or is it a reminder that life is short and you have to get to what really matters, and be with people who are truly wonderful and good, no matter what?

I can't think of a more joyous way to ask the question.

What I appreciated most in Bread And Tulips (English title), is the subtlety of the humor.

There are some truly wonderful comedic small touches here, such as when the plumbing 'detective' is confronted at gunpoint by Ganz's very linguistically eloquent character, and fails to understand him. There are some very funny lines. But it's not a gutbuster. It's more subtle than that.

A most human drama. Characters are drawn from real life, given just enough idiosyncrasy to make them interesting, not abstractions. I thought it was as gender fair as any movie I've seen : both the women and men are equally shown as flawed, ignorant, sinister, mean, or noble and generous without making the case for one sex being preponderantly more prone to such failings or graces than the other gender.

It is directed with a nurturing gentleness reflective of a female director . . .although the director is a man and the co-writer a woman. The story's protagonist is a woman whose heart has been relegated to second-class by all the self-serving males who surround her. . . her intimacy sacrificed. A woman can understand another woman in this conflict more naturally than men usually can which makes the director's accomplishment all the more remarkable.

If you're up for a romantic movie comedically driven but full of pathos, look no further. I recommend this movie heartily.

Wish there were more movies this well done. . . .

What comes into mind when we say "classic"? Well, it has to be universal and deep and yet simple. It should appeal beyond the "critics" and reach the critical mass. I can't say if "Bread and Tulips" can be termed as a Classic already ... but it does satisfy all three above mentioned conditions. It is simply put, very universal yet subtle and deep. It builds intriguing moments... that viewer keeps even after the movie ends. How real or logical or practical the story is or is it a fairy tale?

Well, how many times in real life we act logical? The fact that human being is NOT a logical creature and they act per their impulse and dream for their dreams to come true ... this can be categorized as a quite close thing that may happen to someone. Or at least someone may not be disappointed if that happens to her/him. In short, its not a everyday incident. But YES ... it can happen and well, bits and pieces DO happen in life.

Overall it gives a tremendously optimistic view towards life ... I would argue a real inspiring outcome. It portrays a middle aged woman getting close to her real life and real likings when circumstance puts her away from the typical and logical setting in her family. She finds her confidence back, finds friends, finds likings and music ... and finally yes, finds her love. Its a transformation that she goes through ... and none of which is quite "aceptable" or "normal" in our civilized society. But even then, she had to go out of defined way to get that. In that process, this movie creates great shots and moments that builds the environment and confirms it to a classic comedy. Worth watching ... and worth owning.

A sweet movie that pretends to be anchored in reality. When bored housewife Rosalba is "forgotten" during a trip, on a highway petrol station, she decides to go wild for one day and hitches a ride to Venice.

Once in Venice, Rosalba is fascinated by the city and by a way of life that is not merely utilitarian but also spiritually fulfilling. The flower shop where she finds a job is a first example of beauty as necessary to the soul.

Rosalba brings a bunch of flowers home every evening, to Fernando, the enigmatic waiter that rents her a room. She finds an accordion and remembers how much she loved playing. She strikes up immediate friendship with Grazia, the beautician next door. Most of all, her life is not anymore just being a servant to her unfaithful husband and selfish grown-up sons.

To avoid making the plot too dreamy, Rosalba lives in realistic surroundings: Fernando's apartment is messy and located in a cheap area, the Venice shown is not the luxury facade and Rosalba undergoes only a minimal physical transformation. Yet, it looks like she turned from shabby and vulgar middle-aged woman into a shiny, ageless creature just because of her happiness and a cheap yet feminine dress.