Il regista di matrimoni

I generally love Italian cinema. I will forgive some pretensions for the sake of art. I watched at home - maybe the DVD transfer was the reason some scenes were so muddy and dark? This was a small part of the boredom that put me to sleep - worse was the lack of any compelling plot. Odd to note that the scene with the dogs which someone here wrote was "absurd and excessive" is actually a high point! OK there may be some interest in that this is a film about film making about films - with some filming in the film - but it it had been better shot, or had some characters of interest, it might have been worth the time it took to watch. But no. Mi dispiace per scrivere la triste verità...

The film made no sense to me whatsoever. Good actors(SergioCastellittoaparticular favourite; he was great in "Uomo DelleStelle"/"TheStarmaker"but that was made by Giuseppe Tornatore, a great Italian director as opposed to the mediocre one who made this effort),but awful, rambling script, terrible editing,and a director who seemed to have no idea of what he was trying to say, and ended up saying exactly nothing. Apretentious load of rubbish, but the sort of film that certain Italianpseudo-intellectuals whom it was my misfortune to have known in the dim and distant past would have loved it, and unfortunately Italy has no monopoly on these, they can be found everywhere and probably acclaim this as a great masterpiece. I never thought much of Bellochio as director. I remember seeing his first film "PugniNella Tasca"/"Fists in the Pocket" (or some such title) in Rome when it was first shown close on 50 years ago (I was living thereat the time). All the usual pseudos raved about it, but it left me pretty cold. I didn't think he was much of a director then, and still don't. Age has certainly not improved him, and this film must rank as one of his worst.

An esteemed filmmaker goes quietly on the lamb after his assistant jokingly makes inappropriate remarks to a woman he thinks is an actress waiting for an audition, implicating the director in a sex-scandal. While hiding out in a small town he has his arm twisted by a local prince into making a film of his daughter's impending wedding.

This film has a lot on its mind about the current state of film-making, not much of it pleasant. Beneath the labyrinthine story levels lies an angry satire of an industry that reduces artistic directors to no more than metaphoric wedding film makers, and a society that rewards death over excellence when considering person's worth. These are only two of the many themes that expand to fathers and daughters, masculine identity, power games, even the old 'nature of art vs. reality' debate.

Even when baffling with it's magical realism and surrealist touches it's never less than engaging. This is the kind of film that begs you to come back for a 2nd viewing, and you look forward to it.

This film was a wonderful romp, intelligent, playful, mysterious, full of surprises, with humor in odd places and a tremendous energy. The famous film director (the protagonist) and the events he tries to manipulate through film all become entangled in fascinating ways as he is nearly out-maneuvered by a prince who has never heard of him. There are wonderfully rich images throughout and paths suggested but not followed (exactly what is going on with the somber wife of the pedestrian tourist wedding director?). The ending is so much the better for being untidy. Realism and logic are not what you should be looking for here. If we are going to turn our weddings and our imaginative lives over to film directors, we should be prepared for a wild ride, this film seems to suggest.

If Sicily is a territory of the baroque, with its doubling of perspective, that's part of this movie's challenge to realism. And it's an exuberant pleasure here, outdoing Fellini with not one but three film directors, plus of course the actual Bellocchio, who has made some really great movies and shouldn't be touchy about his honor. There is a variety of takes and casting improvisations on Manzoni's "I promessi sposi" with, somewhere there, actual marriage. Sicily is also taken to be a territory of skulduggery (You already know this version of the island, so there's no spoiler involved), a comic version of which makes the picture worth seeing for Sergio Castellito's work with guard dogs on the floor of the great hall of a palazzo.