Julesbro77
Joined Mar 2020
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Julesbro77's rating
Everyone is praising the acting, cinematography, and the astonishing technical achievement of filming an entire episode in a single continuous shot. And rightfully so. But in the end, what moved me the most in this real-time drama was something far more intimate-the heartbreaking realization of a father who comes to understand that he doesn't truly know his own son.
What can we really do as parents? How much control do we have over the people our children become? Are we responsible for both their virtues and their failings? These are the profound and unsettling questions at the heart of this masterfully crafted slow-burn drama. Every element-its pacing, its visual language, its raw performances-works in perfect harmony to confront us with this timeless, universal dilemma.
What can we really do as parents? How much control do we have over the people our children become? Are we responsible for both their virtues and their failings? These are the profound and unsettling questions at the heart of this masterfully crafted slow-burn drama. Every element-its pacing, its visual language, its raw performances-works in perfect harmony to confront us with this timeless, universal dilemma.
Gabriele Mainetti returns with another, genre-bending film. While his storytelling is too indulgent regarding runtime, there's no denying the sheer energy and inventiveness he brings to the screen. This time, he plunges us into a vivid, chaotic, and deeply human story that fuses action, humor, and social commentary.
Enrico Borello ( The Invisible Thread, Settembre, Familia, Supersex) delivers his most mature performance yet, shedding the supporting roles of his early career to fully embrace a lead character as rugged as he is endearing. His portrayal of a Roman cook navigating a whirlwind of conflicts-both personal and external-anchors the film with a raw, unpretentious charm. Watching him embody this role with such ease and charisma suggests he's ready for even bigger challenges ahead.
A standout element is Yaxi Liu, who doesn't just bring physical prowess to the screen with her martial arts skills but also a compelling emotional presence. Meanwhile, Marco Giallini and Sabrina Ferilli add depth and charisma.
What sets this film apart is Mainetti's ability to merge stylized action with deeply rooted cultural elements. Multicultural Rome, in his hands, becomes more than just a backdrop; it's a living, breathing character, full of contradictions, grit, and poetry. His fearless approach to blending different genres makes for an exhilarating experience .
Enrico Borello ( The Invisible Thread, Settembre, Familia, Supersex) delivers his most mature performance yet, shedding the supporting roles of his early career to fully embrace a lead character as rugged as he is endearing. His portrayal of a Roman cook navigating a whirlwind of conflicts-both personal and external-anchors the film with a raw, unpretentious charm. Watching him embody this role with such ease and charisma suggests he's ready for even bigger challenges ahead.
A standout element is Yaxi Liu, who doesn't just bring physical prowess to the screen with her martial arts skills but also a compelling emotional presence. Meanwhile, Marco Giallini and Sabrina Ferilli add depth and charisma.
What sets this film apart is Mainetti's ability to merge stylized action with deeply rooted cultural elements. Multicultural Rome, in his hands, becomes more than just a backdrop; it's a living, breathing character, full of contradictions, grit, and poetry. His fearless approach to blending different genres makes for an exhilarating experience .
Those About to Die" is an impressive series for many reasons. It arrives at a time when - it seems - many men think several times a day about the Roman Empire, seen as a model of virility, strength, success, and beauty - and therefore finds an audience ready to embrace it.
However, the series does not tell the heroic deeds of Roman generals, nor does it recount battles, but it focuses on the daily life of Rome in 70 A. D., during the Flavian dynasty, shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem and during the construction of the Colosseum. There are several narrative lines, the main ones centered on the struggle between brothers Titus and Domitian to succeed their father Vespasian, and the one revolving around the betting on chariot races at the Circus Maximus, particularly at the tavern of Tenax, a plebeian who manages them and is deeply involved in the street and underworld of the time. A common trait of the narrative lines is intrigue, betrayal, plotting, and violence.
There is also sex, but as much as it is shown, it is always in the background and never truly explicit, just enough to whet the viewer's appetite.
Violence is expressed in private in the clashes between Tenax and Ursus or between the lovers Domitian and Hermes, but above all in the Roman world - less hypocritical than ours - as a grand public spectacle. CGI is pretty basic, but does its' job of giving an idea of Rome in all its monumental classical splendor, as well as set design shows the dark alleys and shops where the common people lived (one of the merits of the series is that it is very dark). It is enjoyable to see the chariots explode and the charioteers get massacred, and even more so, when the Colosseum opens, one is pleasantly horrified when two gladiator friends are forced to fight to the death or when the arena is filled with water and crocodiles, and Hermes is killed by one of them, which bites off his head. The spectator is complicit in the horror and the studio know when they green lite such a script.
These are mechanisms exploited by horror cinema and here adapted into a pseudo-historical drama that amplifies the effect, making the average viewer, with some knowledge of Roman history, suppose that things might really have happened that way. The series suggests that Titus was assassinated by Domitian with the help of Tenax. We don't know if it happened that way, but if we look at the succession of Roman emperors, many were killed by the Praetorians and palace intrigues.
Given the characteristics of the series, a parallel comes to mind between the taste of the Romans for paying to see shows where people fought to the death and enjoying seeing bodies torn apart by wild beasts, and us, who are witnessing live and helplessly the massacre of the Palestinian people. When I happen - I believe like many - to see the torn bodies, covered in rubble, of Palestinian children - I change the image, I turn away because the horror is too much, and I don't think I feel any pleasure. Yet this horror is no longer hidden, but shown in all its unbearable indecency, indirectly reproducing that situation where you are dying, and I am watching. You abandon life due to senseless and absurd violence, and I watch. I watch with horror, pity, compassion, anger, with a broad and strong range of emotions, but as a spectator, I can't do anything to stop it from happening. I don't know how to stop the Israeli weapons, mostly supplied by the United States, how to take them out of the hands of the soldiers, how to prevent them from being given these orders. My weapon is only protests in the streets, voting, dissent. But none of this seems to stop the destructive action we see in Gaza or Ukraine, not to mention other wars that are hidden from the media but still exist.
Returning to the series and making a point, the Romans did not have the myriad of images that bombard us every day, but they had imagination, and the impulses of life and death are always the same. At some historical moment, depending on the dominant culture, they are either repressed or exalted, but they are always part of us. In them, they were expressed in the display of torture, in real violence (as in a snuff movie), in us through images reconstructed for our pleasure, or unfortunately real, even if distant from our daily lives. It took Christianity and a movement of even pagan philosophers to end the horror shows that took place in the empire's arenas, but in our world, violence is less scandalous than sex. Hyperviolent films do not receive the same censorship as naked bodies making love, and this makes one reflect on who we are.
However, the series does not tell the heroic deeds of Roman generals, nor does it recount battles, but it focuses on the daily life of Rome in 70 A. D., during the Flavian dynasty, shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem and during the construction of the Colosseum. There are several narrative lines, the main ones centered on the struggle between brothers Titus and Domitian to succeed their father Vespasian, and the one revolving around the betting on chariot races at the Circus Maximus, particularly at the tavern of Tenax, a plebeian who manages them and is deeply involved in the street and underworld of the time. A common trait of the narrative lines is intrigue, betrayal, plotting, and violence.
There is also sex, but as much as it is shown, it is always in the background and never truly explicit, just enough to whet the viewer's appetite.
Violence is expressed in private in the clashes between Tenax and Ursus or between the lovers Domitian and Hermes, but above all in the Roman world - less hypocritical than ours - as a grand public spectacle. CGI is pretty basic, but does its' job of giving an idea of Rome in all its monumental classical splendor, as well as set design shows the dark alleys and shops where the common people lived (one of the merits of the series is that it is very dark). It is enjoyable to see the chariots explode and the charioteers get massacred, and even more so, when the Colosseum opens, one is pleasantly horrified when two gladiator friends are forced to fight to the death or when the arena is filled with water and crocodiles, and Hermes is killed by one of them, which bites off his head. The spectator is complicit in the horror and the studio know when they green lite such a script.
These are mechanisms exploited by horror cinema and here adapted into a pseudo-historical drama that amplifies the effect, making the average viewer, with some knowledge of Roman history, suppose that things might really have happened that way. The series suggests that Titus was assassinated by Domitian with the help of Tenax. We don't know if it happened that way, but if we look at the succession of Roman emperors, many were killed by the Praetorians and palace intrigues.
Given the characteristics of the series, a parallel comes to mind between the taste of the Romans for paying to see shows where people fought to the death and enjoying seeing bodies torn apart by wild beasts, and us, who are witnessing live and helplessly the massacre of the Palestinian people. When I happen - I believe like many - to see the torn bodies, covered in rubble, of Palestinian children - I change the image, I turn away because the horror is too much, and I don't think I feel any pleasure. Yet this horror is no longer hidden, but shown in all its unbearable indecency, indirectly reproducing that situation where you are dying, and I am watching. You abandon life due to senseless and absurd violence, and I watch. I watch with horror, pity, compassion, anger, with a broad and strong range of emotions, but as a spectator, I can't do anything to stop it from happening. I don't know how to stop the Israeli weapons, mostly supplied by the United States, how to take them out of the hands of the soldiers, how to prevent them from being given these orders. My weapon is only protests in the streets, voting, dissent. But none of this seems to stop the destructive action we see in Gaza or Ukraine, not to mention other wars that are hidden from the media but still exist.
Returning to the series and making a point, the Romans did not have the myriad of images that bombard us every day, but they had imagination, and the impulses of life and death are always the same. At some historical moment, depending on the dominant culture, they are either repressed or exalted, but they are always part of us. In them, they were expressed in the display of torture, in real violence (as in a snuff movie), in us through images reconstructed for our pleasure, or unfortunately real, even if distant from our daily lives. It took Christianity and a movement of even pagan philosophers to end the horror shows that took place in the empire's arenas, but in our world, violence is less scandalous than sex. Hyperviolent films do not receive the same censorship as naked bodies making love, and this makes one reflect on who we are.