Il compleanno

Maybe it's because I'm Italian but this Italian film is absolutely brilliant. Anyone who says otherwise obviously doesn't get it based on what the various reviews here say. Nor is this film for the faint of heart or the weak of mind. It is stimulating, thoughtful, and very intense because you never know what will happen next, a true sign of a great film. It keeps you at the edge of your seat biting your fingernails. But any film that begins with a Wagner opera is nothing to sneeze at and if you don't get Wagner you won't get this film either. Visually, it is nothing less than stunning, in fact may very well be the most beautiful film I have ever seen. The eroticism is unprecedented, true art, done so perfect that I sat there with my mouth open because it never borders on the vulgar. The cast is sublime, just about the most perfect casting you can imagine.

As you watch this film, you'll find yourself wanting to scream, "Don't do it. Stop! Stop!," that is, if you have ever betrayed the best that you have for something that you should not obtain. The acting is excellent, and believe me, after having watched more than my fair share of French films, this Italian creation is an action film in comparison. A malevolent, mythological undertone, the antithesis of those mystical experiences found in Italy by E. M. Forester's Brits on vacation, lurks just below the surface as the story lurches toward what did not have to be inevitable. If you watch closely and listen intently, David's Birthday says much about betrayal and unrequited love.

I am somewhere between liking and disliking this movie, so I am giving it five stars. What I like is the lovely performance by Massimo Poggio as Matteo; if the rest if the movie had been on his level it would have gotten an easy eight stars. But it was as if he was working all alone in an otherwise uniformly mediocre undertaking.

The story, the dialog, the pacing and all the other performances are more like a soap opera than any other movie I can think of, with overblown emotions, preposterous developments, a lot of yelling and crying, and almost continual minor crises of one kind or another - even convenient interruptions for commercial breaks (what another reviewer brilliantly described as fadeaways).

I am a gay man, but I did not find Thyago Alves attractive at all, so the fact that Massimo Poggio made his obsession with the boy totally credible is part of his achievement. His is a stunning, subtle, restrained, and deeply moving performance. So I can recommend this movie highly for his work, but not for anything else.

Movie opens with a melodramatic opera scene and the ending of the movie finishes likewise. So over the top that the tragedy at the end seemed too contrived and unrealistic. The sex the married Italian had with the tempting young man was made to seem like the worst thing possible and the guilt trip over what accidentally happened at the end would last a lifetime. Oh come on...give me a break. Total overreaction....totally unreal drama!!! Not interesting and not sexy.

Built on the theme of ill-fated love, this film merges modern cinema with opera and emerges with a hybrid which infuses the viewer with a morality tale under two hours duration. Emotional theatrics reveal the frayed and tattered mental state of these two couples as both attempt to keep the appearances of functional family ties and friendships. While some USA viewers may find the emotional intensity "over the top," I find it similar to the emotional intensity that was infused into American Western genre when it went Italian and added an operatic theme to the story-telling. While no bullets are flying in a "pulp fiction" sensational style, the emotional content and the poignant plot climax enliven a rather dull scenario of viewing yet another "Doing Time on Maple Drive" clone-film with subtitles.