Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Blistering performances.

Orson Welles once said there are 52 million great actors in Italy, none of them work in films. Cards on the table. I am an Italian. I write movies and act in movies and there are some moments in Italian movies that are like no other. New moments. Acts of inspired imagination. Leone had them by the yard. Fellini the same. I could name a dozen. But this film is nothing more or less than two and a half hours of soft porn and cheap emotions. If you like a lot of simulated copulation and have hours of nothing better to do, then this one is for you. But it is sure as hell not one for me. Time to go and check out Bitter Rice to take the taste out of my mouth.

This was a well structured, well crafted film with excellent acting throughout even if it was, at times, somewhat overacted with Monica Belluci the main culprit. The spirit of this film is, I think, summed up by a wonderful scene where the Osvaldo and Luisa are hiding in the secret room of a country residence, all Ann Frank, with Osvaldo going through a sickening bout of withdrawal from morphine and cocaine. So bad is he, in fact, that as a peasant girl watches, Luisa reaches in to Osvaldo's pants and masturbates him to sleep before wiping her hand on the blanket and embracing the child, encouraging her to pursue love and iterating that it is a truly wonderful thing, even if the scene she's just witnessed is horrid. The girl goes on to get raped and murdered. You wouldn't get this in Hollywood. Though provoking, challenging, interesting, mobile.

What a pity to see Inspector Montalbano wasting his talent in this period soap. The viewer endures endless soft porn images of middle aged Monica Bellucci - whose acting explores the gamut of facial expressions from "concerned about what's going to happen next" to "very concerned about what's going to happen next". Luca Zingaretti gives a one dimensional performance as the drug addicted love interest and various other actors come and go in a confused melange of flashback, fast forward and present time - all spinning like vapid moons in Bellucci's bosomy orbit. As for the plot - the less said the better. The movie revolves around the not-so-vexing question of whether the lovers will be killed by revengeful partisans - less plot device than mercy killing. Save your money and watch grass growing for 148 minutes - you'll have more fun with the grass.

Maybe if the director went a little easy on the flashbacks and allowed actors to grow with the scene the results would have been different. For me, Zingaretti was way over the top, needing Bellucci's passiveness to balance the scenes. I don't see any other actress playing Luisa Ferida. In all, the film lacks historic references, making it feel empty. When the story asks for continuity Giordana gives us a flashback, when the scene is at the point of climax he brings it down with a harsh cut. The story of Luisa Ferida and Osvaldo Valenti is so rich and yet, the film focuses more on Luisa's two loves instead on focusing on the drama of living hard in a divided country.