Freaks Out

The story is steeped in magic realism, well acted and quite touching in several moments.

My favourite character was the hunchback leader of the partisan gang, but everybody deserved praise (Santamaria was excellent as always, all but unrecognizable under a heavy Chewbacca - style makeup).

Franz chews every scene he's in, and even minor characters are well-rounded, from Irina to the wolf-woman to the partisan sniper.

Even the final battle scene is well choreographed, and makes more tactical sense than several big budget battles where the opposing armies simply rush at each other.

Definitely recommended.

It reminded me of what happened with Benigni's Pinocchio. Mainetti made us wait almost six years for his "cinecomic". He wants to repeat the call of his previous experiment. He opens with a dazzling incipit. Then almost everything derails. The increase in the means available - which prevented the immediate release in streaming - had to guarantee even more visionary than his last test. Unfortunately, the only revelation worthy of the other undertaking consists in the choice of the protagonist. There was Ilenia Pastorelli, here is the very young Aurora Giovinazzo. So far we are. Then, between a few empty passages and a smashing epilogue (reminiscent of the own goal of the final battle in the dark in the Games of Thrones) one gets more and more the impression of witnessing a long drawn episode of a fantasy TV series. It is recognized the good will to want to be different, at least in intent, from the Italian cinema of recent seasons. At the same time, by raising the bar of ambition, any appeal that could become cult again is inhibited: on this occasion, there is some politically incorrect idea or some Chaplinian tenderness but it is not enough to give freshness to Italian popular cinema. The "coming to age" journey of his gentle misfits - much more successful in Jeeg Robot - this time does not compete in depth with his obvious models (X-men, Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad). Claudio Santamaria, now elected as the director's alter-ego, is masked in Chewbacca style, despite being the only star of appeal (together, perhaps, with Giorgio Tirabassi). One wonders why Luca Marinelli has not returned as the villain.

What Mainetti was aiming to do was probably a bit too ambitious for the budget of the movie, you can see that mainly in the vfx, however the movie is able to appear realistic, thanks to the folk substrate of the characters and locations. A note of credit goes to Aurora Giovinazzo, who plays Matilde, for her great performance, surely a good discovery for the italian cinema. Indeed a really well made movie for the italian and european scene, which can aspire to be seen overseas.

Im not going to masquerade as some Hollywood critic reviewing on here like a lot of folks. But...just... wow, by far the most unique & electic story line I've ever seen. Interesting two hours in front of my tv.

A quite fantastical adventure that caught my eye out of curiosity, I went into watching this film blind without viewing a trailer, what wonderful surprise this film was in a good way, a rather odd but strange tale of a circus family of freaks caught up the horrors of WW2 and the evils of Nazism thru out the countryside, and how they grapple with being separated from one another, a mix of wizard of oz, X-men and Fellini, they meet various characters along the way in their journey both good and evil, this movie was rather long and some of the scenes dragged along, but it will hold your attention and that matters most, especially the second act of this film, when the drama takes a turn towards action, the war scenes were well staged and unedited as a matter of fact most of the violence was unedited but not in an extreme way, the Nazi army wasn't prepared for these hapless and uncanny heroes and their survival skills was put to good use, which I enjoyed a lot in a few scenes, if this film is available in your area, and you're in the mood for something entirely different than the normal, seek this one out.