Il cuore altrove

"Il cuore altrove" is a great film.

Great because it shows everyday life from extraordinary points of view.

Great because it tells about how ordinary people can do wonderful things, and shy people can be brave, in the name of love.

Great because it proves that you can put together a talented comic-cabaret actor (Neri Marcorè) and a showgirl (Vanessa Incontrada) and here it is: an unusual, but wonderful couple of actors for a surely unusual, but wonderful love story.

Great because it is able to convince you that very talented and experimented actors like Giancarlo Giannini or Giulio Bosetti are even more talented than you thought.

Great because it provides a touching insight of a town that everybody should be allowed to visit once in a lifetime.

Great because it makes you laugh and cry at the same time and very few films are still able to do it nowadays.

Even if, out of Italy, you won't be able to understand its spirit fully, please try to see it. You won't regret.

If you enjoy lush European/Italian settings and fairy-tale stories, with poignant, but not unhappy endings, you'll enjoy this film. Beautiful setting, some "stereo-types" in characters, but suspend reality for a few hours and enjoy the tale of the MALE ugly-duckling who gets a chance to spend some time with his "swan" even though it's not meant to be forever.

Basically it's the story of a man not joining the chorus, Nello, and of his impossible love for the woman of his dreams. Emotionally speaking he is a late teenager (35 years old), he never had a girlfriend and his father wants to find one for him. It could be a typical comedy setup, but Neri Marcorè gives out his best in his first _serious_ role. The consequence is a strange, a bit surreal, film.

IF you passed through love delusions or a terrible shyness during adolescence you'll love the movie. It has the power to make you remember those feelings, showing them as real as possible. Great acting from Neri and Giancarlo and from secondary characters, good job with casting! Simple but realistic setting and costumes make Il Cuore Altrove a snapshot of Italy of late twenties.

I propose this film to the fans of Punch-Drunk Love, it's another good example of how love can make impossible things happen.

This ostensibly simple but ultimately haunting tale of a virginal teacher in search of a soul mate of proportions equal to the Latin and Greek verses he teaches captures the essence of selfless love, so very rare in male film protagonists since the invention of the Spaghetti Western (also Italian!).

Bookworm Neri Marcore is sent from Rome to Bologna by father Giancarlo Giannini (who's tailor to the Pope and well-versed extramaritally) to learn something about the opposite sex. And learn his son does when he meets the beautiful Vanessa Incontrada at a dance for the blind. But blindness turns out to be more than meets the eye when Vanessa's previous life catches up with them both.

Marcore's subtle performance is reminiscent of Chaplin at his most engaging and Olivier at his most nuanced, with Marcore's smile leaving an imprint long after the screen fades to black.

Pupi Avati is one of the best current directors working in the Italian Cinema. He is an original. His stories are never boring and he has the talent to create a stir among his viewers.

There is a role reversal here. Nello, the young Latin and Greek professor, has never known love, nor has he pursued it before. He meets and falls in love with Angela, the rich society girl that is temporarily blind. Little does Nello knows what he is getting into. Angela wants a vendetta against the real love of her life, who has abandoned her, when she loses her sight, for another.

The irony of the story is that Nello, even though he can see, is in reality the blind one, and it is Angela, the blind one, who will go to extremes to use him until she achieves the revenge she wants, except that at one point, she comes to realize that Nello adores her, but it's too late because then all she wants is to go ahead with an operation that might restore her eyesight.

Neri Marcore, is perfect as Nello. He makes us believe he is the awkward and naive Nello. Giancarlo Giannini is Cesare, Nello's father, who cheats on his wife, shamelessly. Vanessa Incontrada is perhaps the weakest of the principals since it appears this is her first appearance in a film.

Pupi Avati delivers another film that is well crafted and makes one think.