La famiglia

A great movie by master of Italian cinema, Ettore Scola, the director of C'eravamo tanti amati, La cena and Le Bal. This film is a wonderful insight view of the ups and downs of a middle class family, how everybody grows, makes his own family, the good and the bad moments, crisis and celebrations. Vittorio Gassmann delights with his portrait of Carlo, a Literature professor whose life is rather plain but fulfilled with the stories of everybody else in his house, his family. Also Fanny Ardant and Stephania Sandrelli do a great job as two sisters who fall in love with the same man, and try to live with that pain inside, putting family respect before anything else.

First of all, I have been thinking about the question of what the concept of family means for a few weeks. I guess family is like a limb of a person. You share the saddest and happiest moments with them, the most sensitive point of a person could be his family. La Famiglia is a portrait of a family in Fascist Italy. I just watched life and I didn't want it to end, for me La Famiglia is such a movie. We always want a simple and peaceful life but this is not possible. Unfortunately it is inevitable to experience uneasiness in life after or before some happy moments. Of course, people realize their mistakes when they are unhappy. That's why it is an important detail to accept everything as it is and start the change with yourself first. I really like the atmosphere Ettore Scola creates in his films you both laugh and question.

"From Violetta to Alfredo: Life is just pleasure."

"From Alfredo to Violetta: Let us take our pleasure from wine, song and joy."

"May the dawn rise over us as if we are in heaven."

This is a wonderful movie, but it starts off kind of slowly. At one point as I was wondering why I am watching it. But it grows on you and before you know it you are hooked. It's not the kind of movie Americans are used to - it deals with emotions, sensitivity, love, involvement, but without much reliance on special effects, sex, or violence. It explores the meaning of life, but it's one flaw is the failure to bring the search for God into it.

Most of the main characters in this movie are played by more than one actor since the story depicts a family during a period of nearly eighty years. All transitions from one actor to the next are smooth; except for that between the actors who portrayed Carlo, the protagonist. Andrea Occhipinti portrays a handsome and quite charismatic young Carlo, and after a period of about fifteen years in the movie, Vittorio Gassman (35 years older than Mr. Occhipinti) begins to play Carlo. Mr. Gassman looks very little like Mr. Occhipinti, and the miscasting damaged the film which otherwise would have been better than what I gave it, 7/10.

Very good Italian film about a Roman family, covering three generations - exploring sensitivity, love and family values - with hardly any special effects, sensationalism or violence. I think this film also emphasizes very much that social change is part of human life; and that all tragic events - such as WW1 and WW 2 and Mussolini's Fascism - eventually come to an end, making way for positive change, so that people can live happy lives and cherish family values; as well as art, music and literature. This film also explores the complications of love - with the protagonist, Carlo, falling in love with one sister, but then marrying the other one; which causes some complications during Carlo's life - the whole picture being a bit of a parody of romanticism, sibling rivalry and the all-importance of being a good, respectable catholic family in Rome during those times. The last scene, with the 80 year old Carlo - the grandfather now - posing with all his family for the photo (as in the very first scene, when he is a baby surrounded by people that will die eventually) is very moving and profound, I think, because it encompasses in one single moment the essence of human life, and what the journey of a human being is about: An interesting experience and adventure - but also a very unpredictable journey where a person meets many like-minded and loving souls. However, at the end of the day, life is a journey that inevitably has an end; a valuable gift, that brings many loving moments and memories with it :)