A Incrível História da Ilha das Rosas

Living not more than 30km from the place where 'Insulo de la Rozoj' was built, I was always interested in a movie depicting its history...This one leans too much on the comedic side (maybe to avoid a historic drama tone), leaving to the (skilled) actors the task of saving characters' depth. The technical details and photography are indeed very enjoyable, maybe it's just a bit noisy.

A really cool concept, especially considering it's based on a true story. I loved the music and the cinematography was well done. However, the storyline was slow and meandered a bit.

The script is not perfect. And, like all European movies, it is rather slow. But it's an amazing story of freedom right from the middle of the Evil Empire. Kings, Crusades, World Wars, and a handful of individuals looking for freedom. And 2020 is the probably the best time to launch this story.

This film has great esthetics, probably watchable on that alone, but as a whole is a mess. The narrative is so drawn out, with at least a dozen repetitions of the same joke of incredulity on the part of staid bureaucrats, that about 30 minutes in, you'd be better of stopping viewing.

Aesthetically and technically speaking Sydney Sibilia is one of the few directors who manages to make a homegrown film at the level of other international productions and therefore addressed to a much wider audience, not limiting himself to the Italian one as most of the productions of the our country do. "L'incredibile storia dell'isola delle rose" is yet another confirmation of this: special effects, direction and, in particular, cinematography are of excellent quality, an example for all those filmmakers who want to change italian cinema to make it visible and appreciable in the rest of the world. Unfortunately, however, the screenplay does not propose the same quality, between forced and banal dialogues, poorly characterized characters and a fluctuating rhythm, everything that makes this (unjustly omitted from the history books) story wonderfully interesting is missing: the sense of affront and rebellion towards a system that seemed untouchable but also the absurdity, the incredible passion, the irony and at the same time the humanity behind it and its characters, are almost never perceived. The film works as a medium-level comedy-drama and manages to entertain and intrigue but is often unable to tell the facts as they deserved to be told, giving them the more than necessary political, historical and social importance.