Come due coccodrilli

Italian cinema has a reputation of unearthing quality films and exciting new filmmakers, and this is no exception.

Campiotti is a talent to watch out for with this deeply moving film, which touches on family relationships, the themes of revenge and reconciliation, and so much more, in this, a wonderfully multi-layered film, with resonant characters, one of the few films to reduce this hardened viewer to tears.

When this movie starts, you may feel that you are being given pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles to put into place, as a complex and intriguing story is interwoven from fragments of a man's life, constantly flashing back, first to his childhood, and then to his adolescence, and finally revealing a portrait of a man deeply affected by the events of the past. Gradually a revenge motif seeps through the deeply affecting and visually arresting scenario. The film and it's characters are mesmerizingly vivid, so much so that you'll want to see it more than once. Perhaps, at the end, you may feel let down by the denouement, which is not as dramatic as we have anticipated, but then, this is the point of the film: that the man's perceptions of the occurrences and people close to him at earlier stages of his life, which have so poisoned his memory and personality, are revealed to have been falsely interpreted, and the rush of realization that he experiences enables him to break the shackles of the past. It's a memorable film, affecting and rather unique in it's style and resolution.

This film is beautifully shot, explores great themes, is exquisitely acted, is very moving, because you really care about the characters. What a pity that in the version I saw, the subtitles (white on white) are illegible so often, and so often inscrutable. For example, in the important scene when Gabriele first encounters 'Milvio', I could not fathom what they were talking about. It is a film that deserves to be seen widely, but it also deserves better subtitling.