Prefiro O Barulho do Mar

The strength of this movie is it's enigmatic characters; a stern father and his rebellious teen taking under their wings a studious southern boy who's mother has been murdered. All these characters seemed to keep a secret. There's very little plot, however, we delight in seeing these people evolve. The lack of closure at the end might annoy some viewers.

Preferisco il rumore del mare is probably the worst film of the year 2000. The plot is non-existent, the acting is too bad for words and the photography is abonimable. It's certainly one of the ugliest films ever made. Some scenes are outright ridiculous. Can you imagine boys of a reform school spending New Year's Eve playing bingo and protesting against "the priest" (the film reminded me of Boys Town) that they have to stop the game because it's getting late? Or a priest playing basketball after having spent the whole night looking for a missing beggar woman and then refusing to give advice to a man in distress simply because he's too tired? Preferisco ... is not an arty-farty or alternative film, it's just a bad movie. Spend your money on something else.

I was in for quite a surprise at the last sneak preview when I got to see this film. Since they're not paying you back when you leave, I decided to give this movie some credit. However, all credit was lost when the opening credits were over... You have to know that this is not a bad film because it's non-english. There are many good foreign-language films (even excellent ones too)and I must stress out that this wasn't the film's problem. That shouldn't be a problem! I'm only writing this so people who liked it shouldn't start screaming that I don't appreciate "something else". But this was just plain bad, in every aspect. The acting was oh so terrible, especially by the two lead characters. I don't think that their characters required them to look like zombies, so... The film was also very uninvolving. I don't even think you can say something like involving or not. There was not a single appealing scene in it. I can't remember ever having seen a film that looked as artificial as this one. And all the characters are awfully stereotypical too. The ruthless businessman who starts to change, his rebellious son, etc. And in the end, nothing has happened, the motives of the characters are still unexplained and the only thing that went through my mind afterwards was: "I'm being robbed here!". There re also scenes in it that are so hilariously bad, that you just can't take it serious. In the category "It's a foreign language film so it must be good" this is another entry. Just don't believe it! 3/10 (and I mean it: this is not an overrated film, this is mind-numbingly bad!)

If you love, as I do, Mimmo Calopresti and his soft french touch, you will like this film, where unhappy people train their mal de vivre, attempting to be convinced that this is the real life. A bored adolescent unable to find a reason to live; a wealthy father who is not able to speak with him; a rebel southern boy who cannot understand the cold and useless people in a northern town without the sea; an intelligent priest... When this people meet, something will change for all them: not dramatic changes but small substantial changes... Perhaps their life will no more be the same, perhaps they will find the strength to struggle, not simply to accept. This is not pedantically shown: you FEEL it in yourself while you see the film, and after too.

The film is one of the few examples in Italian cinema with the courage to overturn the so-called "Southern Question". Instead of following in the usual rut of Italian cinema which delights in representing the South as a wild degenerate place, the film upturns such shibboleths by portraying the so-called 'modern' industrial North as many Southerners see it: emotionally cold, detached, devoid of values, materialistic and morally corrupt. And it cleverly exposes these ills through the conflicted character of a successful Southern Italian migrant living in Turin. Not that the South lacks its problems, which the film does not shy away from representing, such as its crime and violence. These are amply confronted through the family history of the main character. However, the film does point the way towards a re-engagement with the problems faced by the South through tolerance and by emphasizing the role that can be played by a love of learning even in the most difficult circumstances. In this it reflects, perhaps too optimistically, a long cultural tradition of obstinate but great Southern Italian intellectuals. What many viewers see as unattractive acting is the result of Calopresti maintaining the neorealist tradition in the modern era. It is not his fault that modern Italian life for many is not as 'exotic' and 'different' in terms of their own experience as it may once have been in the days of 'Bicycle thieves'.