Bad Tales

It was a good Concept and a good cast. The work out of the Concept was fine but with room for improvement. The ending is quite shocking and surprising in a way. But I think they could have done more intensive work with showing the dynamic between the suburbian neighbours. At least I hoped for it. The direction is good, there are many intersting Scenes. The acting of especially the Kids who are on the Center stage of that film is fantastic and already that is enough to make it worthwhile to watch this film. The Soundtrack and look is great. The screenplay is probably the weakest part. But generally its still a good film, with many intersting characters (all of them Kind of unlikeable - especially the adult ones). Good european Cinema.

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.

Co-directed by brothers Damiano and Fabio D'Innocenzo "Bad Tales" is a dark, downbeat and really rather unpleasant film seriously lacking in the 'feelgood' factor. It's also rather good in a horrible, queasy kind of way; a film to admire for the obvious skill the filmmakers demonstrate but certainly not a film to like. Set during one summer in a suburb ouside Rome it looks, somewhat forensically, at a couple of very dysfunctional families much in the style of Yorgos Lanthimos. The brothers never quite reach the heights that Lanthimos does but we are definitely in the same perverse ballpark.

Both adults and children are treated with the same off-hand cruelty while their actions are never really explained. There's something almost surreal going on here and not in a good way but then the film is called "Bad Tales" so don't say you weren't warned. I doubt if I'll be returning to it anytime soon but while the brothers may not be the Coens I will certainly be interested to see what they do in the future.

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.