The Pizza Triangle

When l watched this movie in early 1984 I' wasn't able and ready to understand how complicate is an Italian comedy at all, they talk louder, so many facial expressions, body language, whatever they are different, so that time l'd gave a low grade 4/10, now on first revisiting on DVD l've increase a little to 7.5/10, still is very low underrated by IMDb's users, well l've to confess that the movie didn't make my head, maybe a dated movie, Ettore Scola was a fine director like in Brutti, Sporchi e Cattive that is really good movie, even often of dubious taste humor!!!

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First watch: 1984 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5.

Adelaide (Monica Vitti) kisses unconscious bricklayer Oreste (Marcello Mastroianni) on a pile of rubble. He's angry at the garbage piles in the city. She's obsessed with him. Pizza maker Nello (Giancarlo Giannini) is obsessed with her. It's a love triangle.

I really like the surrealism early in the movie. It's a little weird that it turns into threesome and then it gets serious with the jealousy. This did win a few European awards. It's a pizza with widely different toppings. It's never safe. It's a farce. I'm not laughing that much, but it is fascinating. Her suicide attempt is kind of funny. I was never sure of how this was going to end.

I saw this move in the early 1970's on the channel 13 Albuquerque, NM TV station afternoon movie under the title "A tale of love and jealousy" and dubbed in English. In those days and on through my 20's I kept a notebook and rated movies. This one was number one then and still is to this day for me. In effect this movie has a tragic ending and is, in reality, a tragedy, but you do not realize it until the end. For the second showing I arranged a group of my friends to come watch and we all laughed throughout the entire movie until the end, in which a lot of things come together and you realize the underlying sadness. In particular, I remember the close-ups of Marcello Mastrioninni addressing the audience (the viewer) explaining his actions throughout the movie - an excellent effect, the reason for which becomes clear at the end of the movie.

I have suggested it to our local theater a number of times, but it may no longer be available in English. Too bad.

This is one of the best Italian comedies ever made. Known both as A DRAMA OF JEALOUSY and THE PIZZA TRIANGLE, it is an engrossing farce about a love triangle in modern Rome. Bricklayer Marcello Mastroianni meets flower-seller Monica Vitti at a political demonstration. He decides to ditch his fat, older wife for her. All goes well until a pizza, in the shape of a heart, arrives. It is sent to the girl by a young pizza-chef, played by Giancarlo Giannini. The pizza man becomes Vitti's lover, and poor Marcello goes mad with jealousy and attempts suicide, as do each of the other two at some point in this hysterical soap opera. The three lead performers, among the best that the Italian cinema has ever had to offer, are magnificent, as is the direction and comic timing by Ettore Scola, whose DOWN AND DIRTY this would make an appropriate companion-piece to. One could call this movie "commedia all'italiana" with peppers, mushrooms, and cheese.

Awesome movie. I had never before watched an italian comedy but this one impressed me very much. The way that Ettore Scola deals with the tragic themes of the film is absolutely remarkable. By a use of the brechtian detachment he at first makes you laugh at horrible things such as suicide and conjugal violence while at the same time reminding you that what you are seeing is a film by constantly breaking the fourth wall and then at the end of the movie he makes the audience feel absolutely uncomfortable and guilty for indulging themselves in the humor of the film as he points out that these are not laughing matters and actual things that happen. I also love the not monogamous undertone this one has and i can't help but thinking that the director implies that monogamy is outdated and one of the sources of violence against women. One thing that in a way validates this argument is the fact that Ettore Scola casts Monica Vitti in this, the same Monica Vitti famous for L'avventura and La notte, both films that deal with some of the same issues and always with the thought that maybe we would be better off if we renewed our morals (that by the way was sort of a obsession of Antonioni at the time, just watch his interviews). Anyway it's a film and you can interpret it in whichever way you like to, i'm just here to say that it is a great, funny, beautifully shot, amazingly acted ( i absolutely love Monica Vitti in this), and amazingly scored and for those reasons, even if the politics in this don't interest you, you should see it regardless.