Bad Tales

"Favolacce" is undoubtably a good movie, thanks to the inspired screenplay, the anxious score, the solid acting and the frustrating direction. And I say frustrating because the D'Innocenzo's brothers intentionally chose the camera angles that were the less adapt to the scenes in order to provoke a sense of discomfort in the viewer. And this discomfort is what the movie leaves after the credits, a general bitterness for what happened in it. The complaint I have, that is the reason why I didn't love it, is the setting. The ultra degraded suburb filled with pessimistic, poor and angry people similar to the one represented in "Dogman" is excessive and distant from the actual reality. And I'm not saying there aren't difficult situations but here is a bit too extreme and I felt a certain detachment from the characters because they really felt fictional to me (maybe the only one that I perceived as plausible is the one played by Elio Germano). And probably it actually was the intention of the filmmakers in order to tell some tales, as the title suggests, but I would have liked it more if the context was more real and then I think that what happens in the movie would have hit me a lot harder than it did. In conclusion "Favolacce" is good, surely a fine watch, but the level of appreciation you will feel is correlated to how much you will buy its setting and its characters.

This movie stages action in a domestic and familiar environment, where violence never explodes, because violence is not a disturbance of that social order, but a pillar: it's behind every gesture, every word, every thought, it's something sinister always lurking inside the grownups (in a minor but important scene, during a birthday party the adults say horrible words towards a mother - but in whispers, like if they were haunted).

Parents shows and expose their kids as trophies, not caring for them but for themselves: in another scene a young father is pleased by the driving skills of his own son and proudly screams "You are like me!" - something that the kid is obviously not willing to be. Generations basically ignore each other's feeling: and ignorance is the trigger of silence, silence is the trigger of despair, and despair the trigger of violence.

Thanks to silence, conflict is invisible, and for this reason it becomes eventually inescapable: and the surprising epilogue is the only moment when peace is restored in the families, as the parents for the first time looks like they are actually caring for their children. We hear from the narrator at the beginning that everything in this story is at the same time true and false: and eventually we understand that this mix creates a scaring thing, called reality. This movie is good cinema and great advice, you should see it.

Seen at Berlinale 2020, it is a film that looks at the relationships between parents and children. There is a lot going on in this little Italian suburb, but one thing is for sure, the parents make much more noise than the children. It is a story about growing up or never managing to do so. Worth seeing.

This Italian Swiss TV coproduction with Sky TV won a screenplay award at the Berlin Film Festival. We saw it in a group of cinephiles. In the discussion afterwards we could not find one reason how this could have been possible. Maybe every other film in the contest was written worse, but that is hard to imagine. Maybe the jury wanted to play a practical joke. Even the narrator in the film apologizes for the senslessness and boredom of these random and badly written script. Any of the scenes could have been replaced with any other. It makes no difference. It was sad to witness how the art of film has deteriorated both in the making and in a venue of appreciation that once held some prestige. Nice cinematography though, one star for that and one for casting.

Is an expression ive heard , but flat italian is so insanely impossible, due to the alps dividing the blood and temper of culture, but believe it or not, this was a c-flat inemotional horizontal coaster ive ridden for a few years.

Its a couple of family sagas thats the main subject, loads of bad and misunderstood parenting, children that react on reflexes rather than sane decisions, where the incestous sides are very close, and the love and hate aspect rigid but crucial.

But its boringly plotted and written the child cast do above, the adult cast a bit below average, there are long on distance shoots that doent at all switch on one imagination, and if you have that, then skip it, itll ruin your ability. Its saggy and slow, there are twists in the bodybag but they seem rather unrealistic and may happen 1/100000000 timesm a year.

No this was a messy wannabe hunky stroll at the hypercultural mainstream of socialrealism to shock us all, but it wont. I believe youll have to be italian in soul and spirits to contain something outta this. The grumpy old man gives 4 outta 10 stars, not recommended.