saadi1-288-801401 Reviews

Bambina (1974)

Iren Papas is excellent

[9/10 · 1 June 2024]

This film has a similar premise as Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things. I have a feeling that Lanthimos had seen this and consciously or unconsciously incorporated it into his work. Irene Papas's performance is majestic and there is a lot more to this film that you would not get if you just went by the one star reviews. I personally find this period in Lattuada's work and related 1970s Italian cinema quite interesting and rewarding. These films are not at all like the cheap exploitation films that are celebrated by film buffs, MUBI and the BFI. A great deal of good work has gone into this and the editing and the action is very tight.

Death of a Corrupt Man (1977)

Beware of the Delon produced movie!

[6/10 · 11 December 2023]

I watched this film for its legendary Stan Getz soundtrack and the mesmerising Ornella Muti. But like the annoying Deer Hunter where the totally virtuous hero will leave no stone unturned for his friend and is afraid of nothing and no one, Delon battles the entire corrupt establishment single handedly and no bullet ever touches him. Actually the Deer Hunter is a lot better than this in that great realism and characterisation is set up in the first half then you have the unrealistic second half. In Delon produced films you usually have him in every single tiresome shot and he is totally invincible, uncorrupted and he has no sexual tenderness or weaknesses. He even did this formula for his son's movies which were tiresome wasted opportunities. I will never forgive how he destroyed Zurlini's masterpiece, Indian Summer, by having it recut and removing the scenes that had other people in it.

Dirty Weekend (1973)

Not a sex comedy

[10/10 · 30 October 2023]

The actual title of this great film is Mordi e Fuggi which is roughly translated as 'Hit and Run'. The American title of 'Dirty Weekend' and the film poster of a man petting his mistress's bottom misrepresents this film as a sex comedy but it's more of a drama and a tragedy with a bit of comedy thrown in, which is what real life is.

This serious and beautifully crafted work is not a bog standard poliziotteschi as it deals with profound themes of desire for social change, revolution and the absurdity of political violence that preoccupied people in Italy and elsewhere in the 1970s (It's worth noting that back then nobody was aware of Gladio false flag attacks).

I recently watched a poor-quality version on YouTube as it had the original Italian soundtrack but it was worth it. Nearly all the reviews here relate to the English dub as seen on the TCM channel but if you can watch the Italian version with subtitles do so, as one can't really appreciate Dino Risi's great craftsmanship in the English version. Ideally it could be restored and made available with good subtitles.

O Lucky Man! (1973)

It could have been a good film ...

[6/10 · 24 April 2023]

If you haven't seen the full restored 3 hour version, then the version that you have seen is even worse, as in order to cut it down for Warner Bros. They just dropped reel 16. Apparently script writer Sherwin had a breakdown and Lindsey Anderson wrote the script which is why the quality drops after about an hour into the film. Anderson's editing concept constantly breaks the suspension of disbelief that has been achieved by hard working crew, by putting in irrelevant vignets, silent movie captions, black frames, Alan Price and his band suddenly doing a music video (there are five or six irrelevant music videos in there because Anderson thought it was a like a Greek Tragedy chorus!) and general lazy scripting. The beginning and the end are authentic, and are based on the real life of Malcolm McDowell. I imagine that if Anderson had just edited this as regular film (which would have made it the shorter, acceptable version) and if the script and story turns were more realistic, it would have been one of the greatest British films of that era.

Noi donne siamo fatte così (1971)

Comedy alternates with tragedy

[8/10 · 21 January 2023]

An American reviewer is puzzled that some of the sketches are not funny, imagining that this is supposed to be a series of comedies like an American production. However Commedia All'italiana, what this comes from, was obviously not comedy in the modern English sense. A comedy is a narrative that does not end in tragedy e.g. The Divine Comedy. An actor can be la comedienne in French but not a comedian! Even Hollywood has produced films with Jack Lemmon for instance that mix comedy and tragedy. I am not an expert on Tragicomedy and why it was so different in England than Italy but others can explain it.

The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988)

Probably better in Italian

[5/10 · 3 January 2023]

For me it's odd that the characters speak in English in Paris, and I feel it's not a smooth transition from the setting of the original novel. Some of the English dialogues are dubbed and have strange intonations that Ermanno Olmi would not have noticed. The Italian version of this would be more even, I imagine.

So many Italian films have been ruined by bad American dubbing, or Italian dialogue where it should have been English (for example Liliana Cavani's The Skin where Burt Lancaster who is an American officer speaks Italian) and some have benefitted from being shot in English like The Night Porter, where Dirk Bogarde refused to count and insisted on film being shot in English. This is not one of those successful ones though and I think it didn't do as well in the US or UK as it did in Italy for that reason.

A Woman Is a Woman (1961)

Jarring badly mixed soundtrack was art

[4/10 · 29 June 2022]

Few mention the crude, disrupted, deliberately badly mixed soundtrack on this film where the lovely Michel Legrand composed music cuts out mid flow and then the sound effects come crashing through, often too loud. It's supposed to be comic and Avant Garde but I am wondering if it had been mixed smoother like a normal film how much better the whole thing would seem now? I looked up who the sound mixer was and it wasn't a known person so It's basically Goddard messing around. Legrand went on to do traditional, well-mixed film scores and win many prizes and this jarring mess is not mentioned as one of his good works in IMDB or Wikipedia.

The Little Soldier (1963)

The film drags but Anna Karina shines

[5/10 · 26 June 2022]

People who worship Godard, in my experience, are usually not French speakers and I think they imagine the dialogs in his films are more successful than they actually are. This film doesn't really flow well but the subject of state sponsored terrorism is interesting and original. However, without Anna Karina, who is simply luminous here at the age of 20, I wouldn't have been able to watch this film all the way through.

Rifkin's Festival (2020)

Could work if remade with these alterations

[4/10 · 25 June 2022]

This is actually quite a beautiful film thanks to Vittorio Storaro. And it could have worked if the character is played by someone that looks like Marcello Mastroianni or if it has to be Wallace Shawn, then the character has to be a billionaire Rupert Murdoch type media mogul, with a younger wife who has dragged him to San Sebastian film festival. That way the bald little 78 year old's attractiveness to women could be plausible.

Life Is Beautiful (1979)

The Russian audio ver has been restored and is available

[9/10 · 21 February 2022]

There is a version with Russian soundtrack which has been restored and uploaded by Mosfilm in Feb 2022. The Italian version remains elusive, not sure if it is better, or if it even exists. The principal actors feel a bit strange in Russian, it take a bit of getting used to. I always thought Visconti's The Damned and Ludwig and Cavani's The Night Porter were much better in English as the actors had spoken English during the filming. This film is set in Portugal during the Estado Novo (Salazar had an accident in 1968 and died in 1970, Estat Novo lasted until 1974) and so the Mercedes Benz taxi that Giancarlo Giannini drives is from the 60s, the police cars from the early 70s & Giannini's clothes are from a bit later in the 70s. The Soviet director Chukhrai wouldn't have clocked the period clothing probably coming from behind the iron curtain. But this dissonance, the lack of clarity about where and when, could be one reason why the film wasn't a big hit and has been forgotten.

Violent Summer (1959)

A unique talent

[10/10 · 30 January 2022]

Zurlini's Violent Summer is unlike anything else I have seen, even though I have seen nearly all of his films. The photography and the casting is near perfection with a script that is tight and unpredictable. I guess there are other stories involving frowned upon love between an older woman and a young man but they are nothing like this. The devil is in the detail in the way the film gives a sense of reality and of immense sensual beauty.

A great film from a great talent.

The Damned (1969)

Best to see the English version

[9/10 · 10 January 2022]

Judging by the lip sync, this film, like the later film Ludwig, was shot in English by Visconti as it was easier for the principal actors. The English version feels natural and the Italian version doesn't. I am looking for a review or an article by someone who know about this for sure. I could not find the English version of Ludwig. Amazon was streaming the Italian version with English subtitles. But the English version of this film in the longer 157 min length is available and I recommend it.

The Basilisks (1963)

Not a vivid story

[5/10 · 6 February 2021]

There's a story that Lina Wertmuller tells about herself and Fellini: "He said something that I will never forget: 'If you are not a good storyteller, all the techniques in the world will never save you.' He told me that before I started shooting my first film, 'I basilischi'".

When I watched The Lizards (Basilisks), I could not tell who the narrator was and what was the story. There is a vague story but it is not strong or vivid. You have to consider that here she had the very best crew gathered, the best film music composer Ennio Morricone, the best editor Ruggero Mastroianni and the best cinematographer Gianni di Venanzio. Yet all their magic does not make this potentially great film come alive because the traditional story structure is weak or missing. She was warned but it didn't do any good.