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I love that Film. Great Story. Amazing film. Ferzan Ozpetek is the Best FilmMaker.

Inspired by the Beauty and the Beast myth, Ferzan Özpetek's latest film has bourgeois would-be café owner Elena (Kasia Smutniak) falling in love with mechanic Antonio (Francesco Arca). Initially it seems that they are totally incompatible, but animal attraction draws them together. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry and have two children. Later on in life Elena contracts breast cancer; Antonio finds it hard to deal with the news, leaving Elena's best friend Fabio (Filippo Schiccitano) to step into the breach. In hospital Elena strikes up a relationship with fellow-victim Egle (Paola Minaccioni), but this is brought to a cruel end with Egle's death. Meanwhile Antonio learns how to cope with his wife's illness, and the two look forward to a certain amount of happiness. Özpetek builds the narrative around a circular structure, beginning and ending with Elena and Antonio's courtship, with the cancer plot in the center. This enables viewers to focus on the ways in which pore-marital dreams are realized or not, as the case may be. Through the use of slow tracking shots and zooms into close-ups of the main protagonists, he invites us to reflect on the characters' emotions, expressed nonverbally as well as verbally. Although this is a clever technique, it seems rather out of place in a slight narrative which basically reinforces the message that love conquers all. There are also some unfortunate implausibilities of plot that jar somewhat: it is highly unlikely that Elena would resume work so soon after having had chemotherapy; and she would certainly not entertain the idea of making love to her husband immediately after having been given another dose of the same therapy. While the film contains at least one stand-out performance by Minaccioni as Egle, as she tries the best to put a brave face on life, despite her illness, it is ultimately very disappointing.

It's truly a pretty decent little film.. with some very good performances. The two lead actors are both exceptionally gorgeous, and to the movie's credit, the film does not so much play on this fact, and you never feel their appearance gets in the way of the story. She is such an attractive woman (do a search on bing.com.. look at her amazing still images), for sure she's gotta be a model or actress. In addition to her natural beauty, she shows in this production she's got real acting talent.. her David di Donatello Best Actress nomination for this film was no fluke. There's no doubt the film would have benefited from being 15-20 minutes shorter. Lots of scenes were dragged out just a bit too long.. leaving viewers really wanting out of the moment. This can be said of lots of movies, the little word 'cut' being at times very hard to implement. And it's really unfortunate stateside audiences rarely get to viewing this style of films.. for they would have a positive impact and expand on the limited choices now offered by mainstream Hollywood.

one of exercises of exploration of large territories of life. love, choices, sickness, Meridional family, marriage, perspective of death, friendship. like many films with same intentions, it is only a kind of essay. different by others films, it has a solid pillar who gives to it few nuances of seduction - the performance of Paola Minaccioni. far to be disappointed , it has the only sin to use same message, same tools, same lesson in same manner of a lot of others films about contemporary crisis. sure, the humor, the small crumbs of poetry are nice. but, in few cases, forced. or fakes. a film who propose questions. who gives perspectives. but who remains a beautiful sketch.

In the middle of the film, they ask Elena how she feels and she says "confused". It is the director, who is confused indeed. What was the point of the film? Opposites attract? There was no chemistry between the lead characters, even when they were nude. Acting was terrible except for Elena, who tries to shoulder the entire film. Unfortunately, the film does not work as a drama and neither as a comedy. I lose respect for films, in which directors try to talk through the characters. Actually, there is nothing in this film that will require the audience to fasten their seat-belts.