A Missa Acabou

"La messa è finita" is one of the best movies ever directed by Nanni Moretti, telling the story of a young priest and his life among relatives and friends. Their problems urge the priest to evaluate more deeply his vocation. With regard to other movies by Moretti, this one is not as overtly autobiographical as other, more recent titles. This allows the characteristic irony of Moretti a more fluid hand in depicting the little tragedies of his generation. At the same time, he is able to provide a thoughtful and touching portrait of a young priest in an Italy which is less and less Catholic.

A great and very touching film. Similraties can be find between "le journal d'un curé de campagne" of Bresson, "winter light" of Bergman and that wonderful "la messa è finita". It was strange to me to find out a Moretti film which has not got a very determined autobiographical narration. This film is not "hilarous" or even "funny", it is about the ability to faith, to believe in someone, to love someone. The ironic face of Moretti is on the background: A confused Italian society panorama with its lots generations, wit its moral values between a traditional Catholicism and a capitalistic and individualistic vision of a society. A film of spring, but the feelings that it brings are more like the feelings of autumn. It is melancholic. It is harsh. It is about a young man who believes and who dares to return: Turning back to an island that the winds blows so powerfully that the church is attached to the soil with the chains. young man who has alienated from the world of his childhood. Rome of his memories does not exist anymore. His family, his parents, his brothers and sisters, everything about his past has changed. So a film about changing time. A film about someone who is not able to understand what is going on between the couples, who is daring to investigate the sense of love and being a couple.

A very well-written film: Screenplay is literally good. Not just a portrait of a man or a panorama of a society, but also the stories of happiness-es and sadness-es. A film about inner-life's. It is highly bergmanesque -- A film that ends where it begins. A film as a gallery of strange characters from the misanthrope brother to ex-communist. A very courageous film proves the talent of Moretti which can be situated among Bresson or Bergman. (Not only Allen and some other comics.)

A priest returns to his home village expecting to have an impact on both family and friends. He is hugely disappointed when he finds that even his mother and father have grown apart with his father's old life crisis and his sister's dilemma. I was reminded of the Irish Drama Calvary which had a similar premise. This is not quite as good but as a struggling Catholic-American, was impressed by the humanity of the script. The Mass is ended, watch this film.

I came to Nanni Moretti from his wise and witty later movies _Caro Diario_ and _The Son's Room_. So in _La Messa_ I was surprised to see a bitter, angry, and quite selfish Moretti in the role of a suburban priest who seems--much like the psychoanalyst of _The Son's Room_--utterly incapable of helping those who put themselves in his care.

There's lots to like in this movie: the somewhat decrepit but nonetheless lovely settings around Rome, the nods to other great Italian movies (Moretti, in his cassock, playing soccer with the school kids, calls to mind Rossellini's _Rome, Open City_), the intense and largely convincing story. I found particularly compelling a courtroom confrontation involving a judge, a defendant, and Moretti's priest as a witness. I was, on the whole, moved by Moretti's take on the priest's dealings with his brothers-in-arms from what were presumably their days as leftist activists.

On a final note, people are always comparing Moretti to Woody Allen. I don't see why. Their movies have almost nothing in common. I have never seen Allen as anything more than a second-rate standup comic, or as a caricature. Moretti, on the other hand, is a human being.

The film begins with a wedding and finishes with too. A young candid priest, Don Giulio, returns home and finds bad changes. His new church is empty. The last priest is married and has a son. His father has an affair with a young woman (he goes to this woman to talk to her but gets upset and says good bye gruffly. That's the Moretti's style, I mean a very serious character in a very tense situation. The situation becomes funny because his reactions are unexpected, sudden and violent) His sister wants to have an abortion. His old friends, from the day he was a revolutionary, are misfits. An ex-commie is now catholic and wants to become a priest and finally get married. Don Giulio is on the brink of depression and resignation because he realizes that the new world is only based on material and sexual needs. He is an obsolete and useless man like a relic from the past. In my opinion, the scene that sums up his future behaviour is when he is playing football with children and suddenly falls down like a dead man which symbolizes the priest's distress. There is a leitmotiv music with a nostalgic mood played in a various ways all along the film. The music is very important because it explains Moretti's feelings, for instance : he plays with sound effects (the musical fade) in order to emphasize the drama itself; when his sister deals with his father, Don Giulio turns the radio up outloud : ironic and dramatic at once. Nanni Moretti also uses singing as tongue-in-cheek effects. He deals with serious and sad matters in a bittersweet way. Instead of the usual Michele Apicella character, Moretti now plays priest Don Giulio (like Socrates) who still enjoys his cakes, his ball, his mother and himself. Moretti treats the theme of the uncomprising individual through the courage and the stubbornness of his desperate priest who, for example, undergoes three times the violent attacks of men that don't want to park their car properly. The best scene is when the priest tries to save a friend from hoodlums and recite Dante. Nanni Moretti shows us a wide array of fantastic characters, for instance : the misanthropic man who wants to erase his past. "La messa è finita" is a subtle pamphlet and an analysis of today's Italy cleverly directed. Iconic actor Nanni Moretti remains the best contemporary European director.