Lembranças de um Amor Eterno

I love Tornatore, but not for films like this one. It is missing the bittersweet humor of his other films, and the musical score by Morricone is not very memorable. That is already a bad combination. This is the 11th film of Tornatore that I am reviewing in succession, and it ranks in 11th place; that should give you a clue.

If you liked "You've Got Mail" with Tom Hanks, you will not like this film because it has none of the humor of the Hanks film. It is a series of tedius, and eventually, boring exchanges between Ededededededed and the female leading character's name I have already forgotten.

Her occupation was interesting; she was a stuntwoman, and the only interesting parts of the film are her stunts, but they are not enough to hold up this miss. Don't bother with this one; watch ANY of his first ten films; they are ALL better.

Writer/Director Giuseppe Tornatore ('Cinema Paradiso', 'The Legend of 1900', 'The Best Offer', 'Everybody's Fine') has created a love song to Italy, science, astronomy, writing as an art form, communication and that fragile love between an older professor and a student. In other's hands this combination may come saccharine and a silly treatise on life and whether we die or become part of the universe spirit. Tornatore makes it a sensitive and delicate poem of a film.

Amy Ryan (Olga Kurylenko), a young student and stunt woman for films and Ed Phoerum (Jeremy Irons), a highly respected astrophysicist have an affair for 6 years, primarily an affair over distance. When Ed goes out of town, both of them keep in touch by text and video chats. All seems well and carries a light touch of humor as well as longing until Amy discovers Ed died 2 days back due to cancer. But still she receives messages and gifts under the name of Ed. Amy meets Ed's family (Shauna Macdonald, Oscar Sanders) and gradually assimilates with them. She ceases to feel lonely with the frequent input of videos she receives at strange intervals but remains surprised about the mysterious messages and gifts. How Amy copes with her life and how is Ed texting and sending gifts even after his death forms is brought to a satisfying if over long conclusion to the film. Ed suggests that she will find another man and very briefly in the end Amy encounters an old acquaintance Jason (Simon Anthon Johns), suggesting that Ed's last prediction will be fulfilled.

Tornatore's writing includes some wonderful information about the stars and the theories of their life span as well as other Astronomical insights and mixes these with love poems that are radiant as delivered by both Irons and Kurylenko. Though the film opens with a passionate love scene we both hear in darkness and eventually see as the film progresses, the remainder of the film is a conversation via cell phone and video and for those of us who have problems with the obsession with those forms of interaction in today's society, Tornatore manages to soften the mechanical emptiness of their use.

Ennio Morricone provides the musical score and Fabio Zamarion the exquisite photography of Italy, Scotland, and the UK. The film is in need of some editing but the spirit is there and Tornatore's little gem restores our faith that fine films are still being made.

A deep love relationship develops itself between Ed Phoerum, a professor and astronomer and Amy Ryan, a young student and movie actress, despite the fact that not only she is much younger than him but also they are apart and at some distance from each other, seldom meeting physically. But he sends her videos with passionate messages. He suffers a sudden death (he was very ill) which does not impede their relationship going ahead like if he was still alive because he had a plan consisting of having written many messages to her and made some videos that without her knowledge he has given to people he knew with the charge of giving them to her at periodic dates coinciding with some important events of her life . This combines her anguish with the pleasure she has on reading his messages (in letter form) and watching his videos and led her to look for those people to get information and take the letters and videos. A quite strange story but well told, directed, acted and filmed.

As compare to his former, exceptionally great, movies like Cinema Paradiso, The Legend of 1900, Malena, Sttano Tutti Bene(Everbodys Fine), Baaria, The Best Offer and The Unknown Women, his Correspondence is somewhat left me in depsair. His direction skills are peerless with impulse of emotions and feeling in most of his movies with touch of comedy. Correspondence is what i will call not a movie of Guissepe.

Years and years ago, Pier Paolo Pasolini would have solved this 116 minutes film with one sentence: "Death does not mean a lack of communication; it is the impossibility of being understood."

And while this concept (twisted, distorted, disfigured) still remains interesting enough, Tornatore's prolix (plain redundant right there in the middle) writing swings between borderline creepy and full-on cheesy.

Among the tear-jerking treacle, his pseudo-philosophical, re-adjusted to the contingency, take on astronomy -- dead stars and all -- is accurate and poetic enough, and really the only element (almost) giving the movie an appearance of tightness, thickness and consistency in its back and forth, back and forth rhythm.