jaapparqui

Ballo a tre passi tells four stories from the empty, rural Italian island Sardegna. The film reminded me very much of Kaos, by the Taviani brothers. The pictures are delightful to the eye and this debut is made with very much love for this Italian island. Although a slow pace is sometimes necessary to tell a beautiful story, at some point the film is not intense enough to compensate for being this slow.

The Italian national trauma of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro is a very interesting subject. A deed like that raises many questions. Why is anybody so obsessed by his ideals to kidnap the Italian president and subsequently murder him? How mentally ill is such a person? What emotions do you have when you are locked up for months in a row knowing that you'll probably gonna die? Hardly any of these questions is answered in the film. All you see is two hours of people walking through the appartment. The political discussions with Moro could give some insight in the motivations of the kidnappers but are superficial. It is as if only the uninteresting aspects of this kidnapping where filmed. There are also moving moments though: the letters of Moro to his family are heartbreaking.

There are a lot of good things you can say a bout this movie. The subject - the impossible love of a dying person - is important and not so common in film. The film is told in a slow but not in a dull pace. The emotions are present but stay below the surface and therefore never become sentimental. But despite of that, the film failed to move me. Why? I really don't know. Maybe it's the predictability of the story. From the very beginning you know those two people will love each other and this love will be impossible. Or maybe it's just missing this magic thing that some films seem to have and others don't.