Palerme

From BIFF once again. Long time since I watched an Italian movie, so I thought I'd do it today.

And boy was it a treat! A p!ssing contest, literally....

An allegory of sorts about taking a stand, it depicts how 2 different individuals decide to dig in their heels and not yield or budge for the other.

Some may think that this is also a function of how the other characters enable them both (?) while having their own agenda for how it all plays out, with almost each individual/group thinking they're in control and making their respective plays whenever things slip just a little, right until the very end. IMO, it was also a function of where in life each character was at the time each couldn't/wouldn't back down.

A curious fact - one of the supporting characters in this one looked like a yesteryear baddie from 2 of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns - For a few dollars more and A fistful of dollars, and I confess it was nice to see that, and note the resemblance, and make my own assumptions about how that character's arc was gonna play out. A side note, but unique for me, and I hope, for a few others as well.

And the end. Debate on who you think yielded. Or didn't. :-).

The one thing that may have been slightly off-putting or confusing to some (not the very end, which I've tried to address later) but not to me, is a little presumptive (?) supernatural or pseudo- supernatural goings-on that color everything else differently when viewed in that context. Almost used, IMO, like the proverbial red herring.

Also, there's a segment right at the end that sharply divided audiences but I perceived it as an allegory (there's that word again) for our experience of the entire flick, on onlookers, plus of our tendency as human beings to always want to rubber neck when there's something that afflicts someone else. Sharp comment, that!

All in all, a damn good time at the movies.

Western Sicilian said the director, of course, but a metaphor for two opposite worlds: a rough and primitive one (with Marquis echoes), cynically capable of betting on who will give up first. And the other emancipated, played by the director herself, capable of moving away from her origins, with a regurgitation of malice towards the stubbornness of a grandmother, of Albanian origin, who is the banner of the neighborhood, played by a splendid eighty-two-year-old actress, Elena Cotta, who therefore received the Volpi cup at the 70th Venice festival. Whoever criticizes the incomprehensible use of dialectal expressions does not know the director's theatrical history, who has always made it his fundamental stylistic note. Among other things, the film is subtitled! You can choose to see it to appreciate its realization courage, in the context of an Italian cinematography increasingly flattened by repetitive commercial choices!