Il nano rosso

slices from Fellini, drops from Michel Tournier novel. and a mount of good intentions. result - not a movie. but a game. feelings in large clothes, Anita Eckberg as axis of interest, a Jean - Yves Thual isolated in a too long story about life, friendship, hopes, rage, emotions, a dwarf, a girl and circle of small things.in fact, nothing convincing. only drawing of a large fresco and fear to finish the work. few basic solutions, far from real emotion. and some nuances of gray. not enough. but it is difficult to say - it is a bad film. it is only an exercise to present a tale. and a mountain of good , beautiful intentions.

I saw this film on the filmfestival in Rotterdam and to be quite honest, I thought it was a terrible film. It was full of cliches and I think the director had an overdosis Fellini. But the Master wouldn't like the film at all. There are absolutely no sympathetic characters, the story makes no sense and actors are no good (except for Anita Ekberg and Arno Chevrier in the hilarious part of Bob).

I saw this film during the 22:nd Gothenburg Film Festival. I chose to see it since the title reminded me of Red Dwarf, the TV series, and started to read about the film in the festival program. I didn't need to read more than 2 two lines of text before I knew I wanted to see it. And it was certanly no disappointment, I was amazed throughout the entire film. And just loved it. That it was in black and white helped the feeling in the film. I don't know exactly what to say except that if you haven't already seen it, DO SO !

The first third of this film was very interesting, but mainly because of the good black-and- white closeup photography in that first 30-45 minutes. Then the story began to get very distasteful with characters I could not care about, and I doubt most people could.

The story is a bit disjointed and sordid about a dwarf who has some sort of relationship with a older, fat and married woman, all the while he is serving divorce papers....at least that's what it sounded like. It wasn't all that clear after an hour, and by then I had lost interest trying figure everything out. In the meantime, the dwarf also was attracted to this little girl at the circus. It's all very strange....and not a satisfying story.

One review I read somewhere said this film reminded him of early David Lynch movies, and I think that's an apt description. I love a couple of Lynch films, but some of his stuff stinks, too. (i.e. Eraserhead, Lost Highway, to name two).

It is impossible to understand what the filmaker was trying to convey. Two worthwile scenes in the entire movie, but they were not worth the money for the rental. The description on the backcover says that the movie is about the main character's rage and a path to redemption. However, I simply did not feel his "rage" and his redemption was in plain sight since the beginning. Perhaps the only salvation came that the DVD had trailers of "Character" and "City of the Lost Children" movies far more worth the rental money.