Lamerica

I thought this was an incredible film with a story that was in many ways simple, yet complex in dealing with redemption. An Italian swindler goes to Albania to make a few quick lire, only to get swallowed up by the depth of the Albanian situation.

Amelio stile of directing amazes me everytime more and more. A powerful movie, being very realistic and documentary. Once again, Enrico Lo Verso acting and leading the movie is great. This movie was filmed few years after the government was overthrown and I consider AMelio to be brave with this theme and from my understanding he reflected what happened in a realistic way.

"Lamerica" takes the audience through the devastation of post-communist Albania as it follows the odyssey of a young Italian man who has come to make some easy money but finds himself caught up in the same curious mix of hopeful despair etched into the faces of people he's come to swindle. The film has little plot, the feel of a documentary, and most of the scenes are perfunctory. Nonetheless, "Lamerica" will beg a strange fascination from those who find grizzled realism interesting.

Gino (played by Enrico Lo Verso) and Fiore (Michele Placido) are Italian racketeers who come to Albania just after the fall of communism to set up a fictive firm and pocket the grants.

According to Luca Caminati, the two plot threads "challenge Italy's colonial past and in so doing force the redefinition of the notion of identity. Who is Italian? And what does it mean to be Italian?" This is an interesting concept, but unfortunately not one (as an American) I could reflect on with any real understanding.

But the line between Albania and Italy is an interesting one for me in another respect -- the history of Sicily. Many of the towns on the island were populated by Albanians who have since assimilated, inter-married and speak Italian. What does it mean for them to be Italian? Or Albanian?

Gianni Amelio's "Lamerica" opens with footage of Mussolini's takeover of Albania in 1939, turning it into a vassal state. But the rest of the movie shows a different kind of takeover, with a pair of Italian scam artists going to Albania in 1991 hoping to set up a swindle, only to find out that conditions there won't make it so easy.

I understand that the movie poses the question of what constitutes "Italian-ness", as plenty of people in Italy have non-Italian ancestry (including Albanian). But more important is what became of Albania. Completely cut off from the rest of the world under autocrat Enver Hoxha (referenced in Spike Lee's "Inside Man"), it opened up in the 1990s, only to become a near-third world state. From what I understand, it's only been in the 21st century that Albania's been able to make any progress. No wonder this movie's protagonist experiences what he does.

It's not a great movie, but worth seeing.