Blue Eyes might be a heist movie or a policier, a revenge fable or an exercise in aesthetic sensibility. There's enough of each that it is perhaps all of them. What's certain though is that within the varicoloured hues of a neo-noir it manages a tone of almost effortless cool that recalls other highlights of genre.
Michela Cescon's début feature, Blue Eyes is an assured piece of film-making. Co-writing with Heidrun Schleef and polymath and occasional novelist Marco Lodoli, the film's episodic nature feels less televisual than literary.
Split into un-numbered chapters separated by title cards, the tale is at least at surface a simple one. There is a thief, a daylight robber, who strikes at will across Rome escaping on a scooter. The thrill of the chase is there.
Except, and one of the film's many striking decisions, it isn't. A crime thriller predicated upon...
Michela Cescon's début feature, Blue Eyes is an assured piece of film-making. Co-writing with Heidrun Schleef and polymath and occasional novelist Marco Lodoli, the film's episodic nature feels less televisual than literary.
Split into un-numbered chapters separated by title cards, the tale is at least at surface a simple one. There is a thief, a daylight robber, who strikes at will across Rome escaping on a scooter. The thrill of the chase is there.
Except, and one of the film's many striking decisions, it isn't. A crime thriller predicated upon...
- 5/26/2022
- by Andrew Robertson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Rome -- Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche will head the five-person jury that will award the Luigi De Laurentiis prize for best debut film at the upcoming Venice Film Festival, officials said Tuesday.
Kechiche -- who won three secondary prizes for "Le Graine et le mullet" (Couscous) at Venice last year and who won the De Laurentiis prize in 2000 for "La Faute a Voltaire" (Blame it on Voltaire) -- will award the prize that includes $100,000 in cash, a $62,500 credit from Kodak and a Golden Lion of the Future statuette.
The winner will be selected from all the debut films screening in the main competition and sidebars at the Aug. 27-Sept. 6 event.
Other jury members include Brazilian actress Alice Braga, director-producer Gregory Jacobs, scriptwriter Heidrun Schleef and producer Donald Ranvaud.
Recent winners of the prize include "La zona" by Rodrigo Pla, which took home the award last year, and Peter Brozens' and Jessica Woodworth's "Khadak," which was honored in 2006.
Kechiche -- who won three secondary prizes for "Le Graine et le mullet" (Couscous) at Venice last year and who won the De Laurentiis prize in 2000 for "La Faute a Voltaire" (Blame it on Voltaire) -- will award the prize that includes $100,000 in cash, a $62,500 credit from Kodak and a Golden Lion of the Future statuette.
The winner will be selected from all the debut films screening in the main competition and sidebars at the Aug. 27-Sept. 6 event.
Other jury members include Brazilian actress Alice Braga, director-producer Gregory Jacobs, scriptwriter Heidrun Schleef and producer Donald Ranvaud.
Recent winners of the prize include "La zona" by Rodrigo Pla, which took home the award last year, and Peter Brozens' and Jessica Woodworth's "Khadak," which was honored in 2006.
- 7/8/2008
- by By Eric J. Lyman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Screened at the Venice International Film Festival
What should have been a showcase for Stefania Sandrelli as a spoiled woman taking her granddaughter on a day's adventure, turns out to be a missed opportunity. Box office potential looks slim.
Directed by Valia Santella from a script she wrote with Heidrun Schleef, I Can See It In Your Eyes places Sandrelli as Margherita, a 60-ish songstress distressed following surgery on her vocal chords. A self-absorbed diva, she disappears from her longsuffering husband in pursuit of a not-very-interested lover and plans a nightclub gig to prove she can still sing.
On a whim she takes along Lucia, her granddaughter, who suffers from asthma. Hot on her trail is her own daughter, played by Teresa Sapanangelo, who has long resented the singer's indifference as a parent.
Sandrelli, Saponangelo and Camilla Di Nicola as the young girl are all engaging performers but they're badly let down by the script. Grandmother's whims are prosaic, the daughter's anguish isn't developed and the granddaughter's asthma comes and goes unconvincingly.
The story of three generations of women brought together by illness could have been colorful and moving. But although the players do their best, the scenes are flat, the characters are dull and their fate in the end uninteresting.
What should have been a showcase for Stefania Sandrelli as a spoiled woman taking her granddaughter on a day's adventure, turns out to be a missed opportunity. Box office potential looks slim.
Directed by Valia Santella from a script she wrote with Heidrun Schleef, I Can See It In Your Eyes places Sandrelli as Margherita, a 60-ish songstress distressed following surgery on her vocal chords. A self-absorbed diva, she disappears from her longsuffering husband in pursuit of a not-very-interested lover and plans a nightclub gig to prove she can still sing.
On a whim she takes along Lucia, her granddaughter, who suffers from asthma. Hot on her trail is her own daughter, played by Teresa Sapanangelo, who has long resented the singer's indifference as a parent.
Sandrelli, Saponangelo and Camilla Di Nicola as the young girl are all engaging performers but they're badly let down by the script. Grandmother's whims are prosaic, the daughter's anguish isn't developed and the granddaughter's asthma comes and goes unconvincingly.
The story of three generations of women brought together by illness could have been colorful and moving. But although the players do their best, the scenes are flat, the characters are dull and their fate in the end uninteresting.
Known for his lighter fare, Italian filmmaker-actor Nanni Moretti gets serious with "La Stanza Del Figlio" (The Son's Room"), a highly contemplative but emotionally remote examination of the grieving process.
While there will be those who applaud the film for generally steering clear of heavy-handed manipulation, the scenes nevertheless have a prefabricated, synthetic feel that prevent the material from being tangibly affecting.
Judging from a very diverse audience response at Cannes, its ultimate success depends on the degree of viewer identification. Some might find it consoling; others will dismiss it as clinically calculating.
Moretti casts himself in the role of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst with a smart, pretty wife, Paola (Laura Morante), well-behaved teenage kids Irene (Jasmine Trinca) and Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) and a comfortable home in a small Italian seaside town.
But their warm, nurturing existence is shattered when son Andrea is killed in a diving incident. As Giovanni consumes himself with various "what if" scenarios, his wife becomes obsessed with a letter written by a girl who had met Andrea the previous summer. Daughter Irene, meanwhile, takes out her frustrations on the school basketball court.
Not surprisingly, Giovanni's practice begins to falter as his patients' comparatively trivial problems begin to get on his ragged nerves, while his marriage also is threatening to come apart at the seams.
To his credit, Moretti assembles an entirely convincing family unit, and his character's fevered attempts to rewrite the course of fate by constantly replaying in his mind the chain of events that lead to his son's tragedy have a stirring potency.
But there's a transparent deliberateness to the storytelling (credited to Moretti along with Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef), that results in the picture playing more like a series of scrupulously connected scenes than a cohesive, involving experience.
That prevailing sense self-awareness is heightened by an annoyingly repetitive, tinkly piano theme by composer Nicola Piovani that drones on listlessly with the slightest provocation.
LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO
Sacher Film, Bac Films, StudioCanal
Director: Nanni Moretti
Screenwriters: Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef
Director of photography: Giuseppe Lanci
Set designer: Giancarlo Basili
Editor: Esmeralda Calabria
Costume designer: Maria Rita Barbera
Music: Nicola Piovani
Color/stereo
Cast:
Giovanni: Nanni Moretti
Paola: Laura Morante
Irene: Jasmine Trinca
Andrea: Giuseppe Sanfelice
Oscar: Silvio Orlando
Arianna: Sofia Vigliar
Running time -- 99 minutes
No MPAA rating...
While there will be those who applaud the film for generally steering clear of heavy-handed manipulation, the scenes nevertheless have a prefabricated, synthetic feel that prevent the material from being tangibly affecting.
Judging from a very diverse audience response at Cannes, its ultimate success depends on the degree of viewer identification. Some might find it consoling; others will dismiss it as clinically calculating.
Moretti casts himself in the role of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst with a smart, pretty wife, Paola (Laura Morante), well-behaved teenage kids Irene (Jasmine Trinca) and Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) and a comfortable home in a small Italian seaside town.
But their warm, nurturing existence is shattered when son Andrea is killed in a diving incident. As Giovanni consumes himself with various "what if" scenarios, his wife becomes obsessed with a letter written by a girl who had met Andrea the previous summer. Daughter Irene, meanwhile, takes out her frustrations on the school basketball court.
Not surprisingly, Giovanni's practice begins to falter as his patients' comparatively trivial problems begin to get on his ragged nerves, while his marriage also is threatening to come apart at the seams.
To his credit, Moretti assembles an entirely convincing family unit, and his character's fevered attempts to rewrite the course of fate by constantly replaying in his mind the chain of events that lead to his son's tragedy have a stirring potency.
But there's a transparent deliberateness to the storytelling (credited to Moretti along with Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef), that results in the picture playing more like a series of scrupulously connected scenes than a cohesive, involving experience.
That prevailing sense self-awareness is heightened by an annoyingly repetitive, tinkly piano theme by composer Nicola Piovani that drones on listlessly with the slightest provocation.
LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO
Sacher Film, Bac Films, StudioCanal
Director: Nanni Moretti
Screenwriters: Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef
Director of photography: Giuseppe Lanci
Set designer: Giancarlo Basili
Editor: Esmeralda Calabria
Costume designer: Maria Rita Barbera
Music: Nicola Piovani
Color/stereo
Cast:
Giovanni: Nanni Moretti
Paola: Laura Morante
Irene: Jasmine Trinca
Andrea: Giuseppe Sanfelice
Oscar: Silvio Orlando
Arianna: Sofia Vigliar
Running time -- 99 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Known for his lighter fare, Italian filmmaker-actor Nanni Moretti gets serious with "La Stanza Del Figlio" (The Son's Room"), a highly contemplative but emotionally remote examination of the grieving process.
While there will be those who applaud the film for generally steering clear of heavy-handed manipulation, the scenes nevertheless have a prefabricated, synthetic feel that prevent the material from being tangibly affecting.
Judging from a very diverse audience response at Cannes, its ultimate success depends on the degree of viewer identification. Some might find it consoling; others will dismiss it as clinically calculating.
Moretti casts himself in the role of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst with a smart, pretty wife, Paola (Laura Morante), well-behaved teenage kids Irene (Jasmine Trinca) and Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) and a comfortable home in a small Italian seaside town.
But their warm, nurturing existence is shattered when son Andrea is killed in a diving incident. As Giovanni consumes himself with various "what if" scenarios, his wife becomes obsessed with a letter written by a girl who had met Andrea the previous summer. Daughter Irene, meanwhile, takes out her frustrations on the school basketball court.
Not surprisingly, Giovanni's practice begins to falter as his patients' comparatively trivial problems begin to get on his ragged nerves, while his marriage also is threatening to come apart at the seams.
To his credit, Moretti assembles an entirely convincing family unit, and his character's fevered attempts to rewrite the course of fate by constantly replaying in his mind the chain of events that lead to his son's tragedy have a stirring potency.
But there's a transparent deliberateness to the storytelling (credited to Moretti along with Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef), that results in the picture playing more like a series of scrupulously connected scenes than a cohesive, involving experience.
That prevailing sense self-awareness is heightened by an annoyingly repetitive, tinkly piano theme by composer Nicola Piovani that drones on listlessly with the slightest provocation.
LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO
Sacher Film, Bac Films, StudioCanal
Director: Nanni Moretti
Screenwriters: Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef
Director of photography: Giuseppe Lanci
Set designer: Giancarlo Basili
Editor: Esmeralda Calabria
Costume designer: Maria Rita Barbera
Music: Nicola Piovani
Color/stereo
Cast:
Giovanni: Nanni Moretti
Paola: Laura Morante
Irene: Jasmine Trinca
Andrea: Giuseppe Sanfelice
Oscar: Silvio Orlando
Arianna: Sofia Vigliar
Running time -- 99 minutes
No MPAA rating...
While there will be those who applaud the film for generally steering clear of heavy-handed manipulation, the scenes nevertheless have a prefabricated, synthetic feel that prevent the material from being tangibly affecting.
Judging from a very diverse audience response at Cannes, its ultimate success depends on the degree of viewer identification. Some might find it consoling; others will dismiss it as clinically calculating.
Moretti casts himself in the role of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst with a smart, pretty wife, Paola (Laura Morante), well-behaved teenage kids Irene (Jasmine Trinca) and Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) and a comfortable home in a small Italian seaside town.
But their warm, nurturing existence is shattered when son Andrea is killed in a diving incident. As Giovanni consumes himself with various "what if" scenarios, his wife becomes obsessed with a letter written by a girl who had met Andrea the previous summer. Daughter Irene, meanwhile, takes out her frustrations on the school basketball court.
Not surprisingly, Giovanni's practice begins to falter as his patients' comparatively trivial problems begin to get on his ragged nerves, while his marriage also is threatening to come apart at the seams.
To his credit, Moretti assembles an entirely convincing family unit, and his character's fevered attempts to rewrite the course of fate by constantly replaying in his mind the chain of events that lead to his son's tragedy have a stirring potency.
But there's a transparent deliberateness to the storytelling (credited to Moretti along with Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef), that results in the picture playing more like a series of scrupulously connected scenes than a cohesive, involving experience.
That prevailing sense self-awareness is heightened by an annoyingly repetitive, tinkly piano theme by composer Nicola Piovani that drones on listlessly with the slightest provocation.
LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO
Sacher Film, Bac Films, StudioCanal
Director: Nanni Moretti
Screenwriters: Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef
Director of photography: Giuseppe Lanci
Set designer: Giancarlo Basili
Editor: Esmeralda Calabria
Costume designer: Maria Rita Barbera
Music: Nicola Piovani
Color/stereo
Cast:
Giovanni: Nanni Moretti
Paola: Laura Morante
Irene: Jasmine Trinca
Andrea: Giuseppe Sanfelice
Oscar: Silvio Orlando
Arianna: Sofia Vigliar
Running time -- 99 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/21/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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