Lamerica

Italian director Gianni Amelio is a true filmmaker who is absolutely committed to his art.It is this serious as well as loyal commitment to the real cause of cinema which has led him to make a unique place for himself as a filmmaker whose stories are rooted in culture and civilizations in which they take place.Whether it is Albania or China,films by director Gianni Amelio always make a lot of sense as they never neglect the local stories for reaching the global audiences.The scale on which Gianni Amelio shoots his films is grand.'Lamerica' is an enduring proof of the grandeur of his vision.In this film,he depicts the mean nature of some human beings for whom the other persons'sufferings are a source of personal aggrandizement.There is also a lot of authenticity as Lamerica is based on the real story about the collapse of Albania after the end of a very long communist rule.How an affluent culture is blindly followed by a less fortunate culture has also been vividly described in Lamerica. This is exactly an element which makes the whole story palatable to audiences' tastes.

Amelio stile of directing amazes me everytime more and more. A powerful movie, being very realistic and documentary. Once again, Enrico Lo Verso acting and leading the movie is great. This movie was filmed few years after the government was overthrown and I consider AMelio to be brave with this theme and from my understanding he reflected what happened in a realistic way.

"Lamerica" takes the audience through the devastation of post-communist Albania as it follows the odyssey of a young Italian man who has come to make some easy money but finds himself caught up in the same curious mix of hopeful despair etched into the faces of people he's come to swindle. The film has little plot, the feel of a documentary, and most of the scenes are perfunctory. Nonetheless, "Lamerica" will beg a strange fascination from those who find grizzled realism interesting.

I thought this was an incredible film with a story that was in many ways simple, yet complex in dealing with redemption. An Italian swindler goes to Albania to make a few quick lire, only to get swallowed up by the depth of the Albanian situation.

Gino (played by Enrico Lo Verso) and Fiore (Michele Placido) are Italian racketeers who come to Albania just after the fall of communism to set up a fictive firm and pocket the grants.

According to Luca Caminati, the two plot threads "challenge Italy's colonial past and in so doing force the redefinition of the notion of identity. Who is Italian? And what does it mean to be Italian?" This is an interesting concept, but unfortunately not one (as an American) I could reflect on with any real understanding.

But the line between Albania and Italy is an interesting one for me in another respect -- the history of Sicily. Many of the towns on the island were populated by Albanians who have since assimilated, inter-married and speak Italian. What does it mean for them to be Italian? Or Albanian?