Il cuore altrove

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.

As do other movies of Pupi Avati, Il cuore altrove (the heart elsewhere) deals with people searching for home – home meaning here not only a certain place on the geographical map but also in society and in the emotional landscape within.

A not so young man is sent from Rome to Bolognia with a clearly defined task: To find a woman who will produce an heir. He dutifully sets about to fulfill this task and also gets started in his job as a teacher of Latin and ancient Greek in a high school. He clearly is a misfit – and what's worse: a cultured one - who lives in a world of his own. As Avati explains in an interview on the DVD: He is one of those guys who always sing either too loud or too low – he will never make it into a choir (meaning any choir – this might serve as an explanation for the ending an other reviewer described as a head-scratcher).

At a dance for the blind in a monastery the not so young man meets a young, beautiful and glamorous woman – played convincingly by a Julia Roberts clone. He immediately falls in love with her and she, a temperamental and fickle soul, uses him in turn in an attempt to take revenge at the fiancé who jilted her after she lost her eyesight. The man is hell bent on marrying the woman who, as a dentist's daughter firmly integrated into Bologna's high society, seems to stand socially above him, disregarding all the sensible and well intentioned attempts to deter him. His is an absolutely quixotic enterprise that is bound to fail.

This short synopsis does not illustrate enough the kind hearted approach the director takes towards all the concerned characters and the mellow, consoling atmosphere created by the excellent cinematography and the backdating of the story to the first half of the 20th century. The story has a tragic ending but does not leave the main character without hope (but neither with a home). Very touching is the scene between him and his pupils as he tells them that he cannot stay on in Bologna (because of his delusion). Stay on, we will take care of you, they plead, and it really feels like it is meant that they will adopt him collectively. It struck me as being a typical reaction of young people who, with the innocence of their youth, think they can really improve the world and make a difference.

Once again in this movie Avati proves himself to be something of a master of unintentional cruelty – he really has a keen eye for the mechanics of the mind and the interaction between different people – and the mess they are bound to get into. In this aspect I detect a resemblance with the work of Woody Allen.

Il cuore altrove certainly isn't a movie for everybody's taste but in any case a rewarding experience with many funny and tragic moments.

"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.