Au cas où

I am right now in front of the tv, watching Casomai. It is changing, it id evolving or better...devolving. It begin with a courius wedding of the two protagonists where their love-story is reported. After that everything change, a child was born, and all the rest usually happen in a couple. It is a not a special movie because it talks about a normal couple, and normality is the center of this movie. It doesn't want to show us something particular, there is nothing new, it is just a normal love-story, the story of a couple, and being normal it become different from the rest. It is also a flashing movie, everything is short, every scene is long just some seconds. It is a reported story, many things are known because friends and parents talk about that, and their opinion is central, the opinions create the story and destroy it. It is a simple story of a couple as I said, but it is not boring, it just show a couple, should be everything known, it is, but I am sure that every one of you will want to know what happen, so don't forget to watch the end!

I was very pleased to go and see a "Milanese" film shot in Milan. Alessandro Alatri is a Roman director who has understood properly and fortunately printed in a film the Milanese philosophy.

Film tells the story of a standard -in career- Milanese couple, starting from "the birth" to the death. The birth-wedding is so typical out of any scheme that becomes original and involves all the wedding guests in a flash back story of how the couple came to each other and felt in love. Life is hard in the "urbe" of Milan and after the sweeties old days became tougher and tougher, then finally the product: a child, who instead of strengthen further the couple relationship it weaken because "the selfish effect" typical of a nowadays "metropolis" personality. The advertising environment with all the "creative" under stress atmosphere helps to get well involved in the plot. We are losing the life values and this is well and deeply reflected in this nice and sharp movie from the Senza Pelle's director.

The actors are well chosen, Stefania Rocca nice and well characterised, and a positive surprise, an unexpected good Fabio Volo, well known by the "trash" TV serie: Le Iene.

Rating: 7/10

I loved this movie and I happened to watch it twice in 2 months, in 2002. I already liked Stefania Rocca, but I didn't think Fabio Volo would have been a great actor (telling from his previous TV shows). Instead he was. And so was the priest. The soft simplicity with which the movies explores a whole love story, starting from the beginning, growing to the climax and then facing ever-increasing difficulties, to reach the final break... was really special. Some moments are really enjoyable, and some other moments will make you cry, as you are pulled, along with the 2 wed characters, into deep troubles, feeling love that vanishes minute after minute and, actually, without really knowing "why" they're not in love anymore.

I'd say 9 stars out of 10, even if I may understand that, to non-italian people, it may loose some of its beauty.

"Casomai" is a masterful tale depicting the story of a young couple who wade through the murky waters of marriage. The story is very believable in telling the strange see-saw between oblivion and continuous interference by others, which is fairly typical in Italy (one may wonder whether such happenings are different elsewhere, though). Pavignano and D'Alatri were very good at writing, and that is one of the strong points of the movie. Acting by Stefania Rocca and Fabio Volo is sober and gripping. And the figure of the sympathetic priest is funny and well-rounded. All in all, a truly deserving movie, probably one of the best Italian movies of the year.

A sophisticated contemporary fable about the stresses that work to loosen and ultimately unbind the vows of marriage. The main thrust of the narrative arises from a 'homily' spoken by a country priest following the wedding vows of a young cosmopolitan couple from Milan. In it, the future course of the marriage is spelled out, which bit by bit frays from the stresses of modern life. The 'moral' of this story within a story is that in order for a marriage to work out, both now, and in the past, it has been necessary for that relationship to be abutted by family and friends. This film was a relative blockbuster by domestic Italian standards. It's a terrible shame that this film is not available in either DVD or VHS.