Joe Morelli is a scam artist that loves to prey on innocent people in the poorer regions of Italy. As we meet him, he is trying to swindle whoever he can from the impoverished Sicilians that happen to live in those forgotten towns. The movie is set after WWII in a ruined Italy that hasn't come out of its defeat and most of the population is having a hard time eking a life, mainly from the land.
Morelli, pretending to be a scout for a big Rome studio is seen traveling the back ways of Sicily with his small van that opens up to a mini studio where the unsuspecting people of those towns flock for a screen test that no one will ever see. For the price of 1,500 lire they get a chance to act for the con man and his camera, hoping they will be the next discovery, once the film is seen by the big casting directors in Rome.
Giuseppe Tornatore has a love for the cinema, as he showed with "Nuovo cinema Paradiso", which chronicled, perhaps, his own childhood in a small town in Sicily. Mr. Tornatore is a director that hasn't forgotten his roots, as he demonstrates with this tale about innocent common people being duped because their love and the allure of the cinema, that dream making medium.
Sergio Castellitto, one of the best actors working today in the Italian cinema, does a wonderful job interpreting Morelli for the director. His Morelli is never mean, or nasty; in fact, one of his best qualities is the way how he bonds with his subjects. Mr. Castellitto does wonders as the man without scruples, who eventually is found by one person who he made a fool of. Also, Morelli finds in Beata, the sweet and innocent girl from a convent a love he never knew he was capable of having.
Beata, is played by Tiziana Lodato, a beautiful young actress who is the one that makes Morelli understand his guilt after he is beaten and young Beata is interned in an institution. Leopoldo Trieste is seen as the mysterious figure who comes to recite a Spanish text for his screen test. Franco Scaldatto has some good moments in the film.
This is a film that will not disappoint fans of Giuseppe Tornatore because of his vision about people love for the cinema.
