DVDebut for Nanni Moretti's fine new documentary, SANTIAGO, ITALIA

Really? Something good came out of the horrific Pinochet dictatorship that ravaged the country of Chile during the 1970s and 80s? God knows, all this has been covered and re-covered in countless documentaries and narratives in the decades since then. Yet the new and ever-so-welcome SANTIAGO, ITALIA by the popular Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti offers something surprisingly positive, along with information and a situation that TrustMovies knew nothing of until viewing this gripping and moving new documentary. 

Not that Signore Moretti (shown at left) leaves out the bad stuff. No: His interviews with Chilean citizens who were imprisoned and tortured by the military at the time still horrify and disgust, as do those with former members of the military forever trying to justify and/or sleaze out of their actions back in the day. 

But the heart of this fairly brief documentary details how the Italian Embassy in Chile at the time of the coup and after managed to help rescue, then house and eventually ship safely off to Italy several hundred Chilean dissidents. As we hear from these Chilean-Italians, their stories of the time of Salvador Allende and his and Democracy's death in Chile become a kind of mosaic, of things we knew and plenty we didn't, about how various embassies (there were other good guys, in addition to Italy) helped those being persecuted by the new dictatorship.

Filled with archival footage (above and below) that shows us Allende (above, center) and the time period, and then fills in the history via interviews with Chileans in numerous walks of life -- factory workers to musicians, journalists, artists and filmmakers (Patricio Guzmán is one of these) -- the documentary works its way up to the good news about how many of these people were saved.

Early on, one woman recalls how Chile under Allende "was a whole country, a whole society in a state of love." Except it wasn't, of course. Allende was faced with two choices, one interviewee explains: Strike while the iron is hot and nationalize industry or try to placate the bourgeoisie. He chose the former, more progressive model (unlike America's centrist Democratic Party that keep us moving toward the wealthy, powerful and corporate). Although democratically elected, Allende and his socialist policies were hated by many right-wing bourgeois and upper-class Chileans, so with the help of America, the military coup took place. 

All of this has been told and seen many times over. What Moretti brings new to the table is the tale of that Italian Embassy (above) and its good work. His movie is so full of solid, smart information that attention must be paid throughout. The payoff is worth it, for his interviews are often exciting, funny and very moving. My favorite is the story of a grandmother who must toss her baby grandchild over the wall of the embassy and what subsequently occurred. 

What happened to the "saved" Chileans, how they got to Italy, found employment (and much else, too) and, though hoping to return eventually to their homeland, finally settled in Italy is simply a marvelous, engaging story. But, as encouraging and hopeful as the documentary often is (as are most of Moretti's movies), this one ends on a realistic, near-negative note. We can only hope that Chile, Italy, and -- hello -- the USA, too, will take a different course before the opportunity for change runs out.

From Icarus Home Video and Distrib Films US, Santiago, Italia, in Spanish and Italian with English subtitles and running 84 minutes, hit the street this past week and is available now on DVD (and eventually via streaming). It's a must-see for history buffs, lovers of Italy and/or Chile, and progressives of all countries.

Sicily's gift to the world explored in Kim Longinotto's fine doc, SHOOTING THE MAFIA

I've long opined that if you want to see a movie that really holds the Mafia up to scrutiny without in any way glamorizing this shit-hole organization, that film had better be Italian.

So it is again with the exemplary documentary, SHOOTING THE MAFIA, from British filmmaker Kim Longinotto that tracks the history, career and work of Palermo-born Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia, who, though her work spans a wide array of subjects, is best known for her photographs of the Mafia and their countless killings in Sicily.

Ms Battaglia (below) proves a terrific subject for a documentary, and Ms Longinotto (at left) does her ample justice, offering up a fine serving of this most unusual woman's history: her youth and young adulthood as a married woman champing at the bit for more freedom and expression; the period in which she begins work as a journalist but finds she has more proclivity, passion and talent for photography; her long array of productive relationships with men, all of whom are attractive and interesting, some of whom remain part of her life today.

One of these many men, pictured in his youth, appears below. The major concentration of this movie, of course, is on the Mafia and the increasing role it comes to play in Battaglia's life and work. The photographs we see in the film are reason enough -- if you've any interest in great photography -- to put it on your must-see list.

These photographs, most of them showing murder, are so much more than simply that. They're shocking, yes, but shot (and composition-wise maybe cropped) so well that all the passion, horror, grief, sadness and especially to stupid waste that the Mafia inflicts on society, wherever its rotten tentacles can reach, is on full display.

Longinotto's ability to mix past documentary footage with her current use of Battaglia gives us the shards of history and knowledge we need to fully understand appreciate the depravity of this sick organization and its near-constant killing sprees.

With some of the photography, Battaglia reflects on what it meant to her then and now. There's often a quite a difference, as with the photo (above) of the young prostitute and a couple of her gay friends -- all murdered because the girl broke that cardinal Mafia rule: She tried to work for herself.

As you might expect, this documentary gathers steam and a strong sense of feminism as it moves along. Women have long been relegated to second-rate in Italy, and Battaglia is having none of that. She knows her place, all right, and she's going to make sure that the men know it, too. She's not simply pushy; he has everything it takes to back up that pushiness.

Much of the movie is devoted to the famous 1986-87 Mafia trials involving Judge Giovanni Falcone above), later assassinated, along with his wife, by the Mafia. (Watching these documentary scenes should immediately bring back the recent Bellocchio film on this subject, The Traitor.) Then, to see what looks like half of the Sicilian population turn out in the streets to condemn and protest not just the Mafia but the politicians who help keep them in power proves a most stirring and life-affirming scene.

There is so much to appreciate -- the photographs, the history, the characters -- in this fine documentary about a woman and her work, neither of which you're likely to forget, that for anyone interested in Italy and the character of the Italian people, in photography and the Mafia, TrustMovies cannot imagine your missing the opportunity to see this fine film.

(The five-minute interview with director Longinotto, part of the Bonus Features on the disc, is a must-see, as well.)

After a limited theatrical release this past November via Cohen Media Group, Shooting the Mafia hit the street on DVD and Blu-ray just yesterday, Tuesday, March 24 -- for purchase and/or rental.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME: Lee Liberman's Sunday Corner takes a second look at the Guadagnino/Acimen/Ivory collaboration

The pleasure of this lovely film (streaming on STARZ), in which a peach takes a star turn, lies in the viewer’s willing absorption into a bucolic summer affair that unfolds tentatively, awkwardly, as one remembers first love. The ‘plot’ is the arc of falling in love, aided by one’s own bittersweet recollections of what the hormone avalanche is like — the craving, the hurt, the giddy madness. The film’s title refers to the pair merging with each other, seeing themselves in each other’s eyes — they will call each other by their own names.

Made by a collaboration of notables (at right, James Ivory of the famed Merchant-Ivory team), novelist André Acimen (below, left), and director, Luca Guadagnino (further below, right), the project came together after years of stops and starts, on a low (3.5 million) budget, and was shot in and near picturesque Crema in Northern Italy, the director’s home town, set in the early 80’s when everyone was still smoking and had not disappeared into their cell phones. The source material belongs to novelist Acimen (professor in the graduate school at City

University of New York), who is reportedly writing a sequel. Ivory, the script writer, won an Academy Award last year for best adapted screenplay (the film and lead actor received many nominations and accolades). Director Guadagnino calls this the third film in his trilogy about desire, the prior two being I Am Love and A Bigger Splash (both with Tilda Swinton). This third is particularly universal and beloved because of the mind-meld the director achieves between his material and the audience.

Guadagnino describes this work as a search for the blending of the personality of the actor with the character, and believability of the characters’ finding themselves in each other. Some disagreement developed about the filming of sex and nudity. Ivory’s script was more explicit than Guadagnino’s final cut, but the director was deliberate in taking a minimalist approach, explaining that he’d been there/done that in earlier films. A Bigger Splash was a virtual riot of provocation, nudity, sex. In this story, however, the experiential unfolding of the lovers emotions and their parting grief at summer’s end is intoxicating; explicit sex would call attention to itself rather than the exploration of their feelings. And does he ever succeed — the universality of the emotions possesses one completely as though you are experiencing them yourself.

The story unfolds through the eyes of a beautiful, coltish, 17-year-old, played by the winsome Timothée Chalamet (above, left) whose star just keeps glittering. Elio is bookish, his spare moments devoted to reading, writing, and music. His American father (Michael Stuhlbarg, below, second from left) is a professor of Greco-Roman antiquity, and his lovely mother (Amira Casar) is French. The family chatters back and forth easily in Italian, French, and English with affectionate closeness – an atmosphere both intimate and cosmopolitan — a very inclusive wide wide world.

Elio has a girlfriend from childhood, Marzia, (Esther Garrel, below, sister to French movie idol Louis, daughter of famed film director, Philippe Garrel).

Elio’s father hires a graduate student to join them at their lived-in sprawling villa to assist with his research over the summer. Enter Armie Hammer as blond god Oliver, handsome and self-contained, like the sculptural ancients that Mr. Perlman studies, cool, self-assured. He is both chilly to Elio’s show of desire — and interested — attracted to Elio’s unself-conscious brightness (says Elio: If only you knew how little I know about the things that matter). Elio is plain smitten, not knowing how to behave. The two young men circle around each other nonchalantly, Elio becoming irked at Oliver’s casualness and his own obsession. He has sex for the first time with Marzia, acting out his defiance and frustration.

Oliver tells Elio he doesn’t want to mess things up or cause Elio to have regrets. (We’ve been good, he says, we haven’t done anything to be ashamed of — I want to be good.) Elio, so nurtured and accepted by his parents, boyishly, shamelessly prods and pushes Oliver until he drops his guard, gives in to his own feelings, and they pour themselves into each other.

At summer’s tearful end, Elio’s ‘dream dad’ father offers words of comfort and wisdom, in the conversation much noted and treasured by viewers and reviewers (and reminding me of a 6-year-old who once told me she wished that Mister Rogers were her daddy.) Below the image of Stuhlbarg is André Acimen’s text with the gist of the advice to his grieving son.
 

It appears that dealing with attraction to men has been an issue for Oliver, who would expect his father to humiliate or reject him. Some months after Oliver’s return home, he calls the family to tell them he is engaged to be married. To Elio, though, Oliver says: I remember everything. Elio confesses that his parents know about them. Oliver replies he had felt like a family member, like a son-in-law. “You are so lucky — my father would have carted me off to a correctional facility.” In these exchanges are seeds of a new chapter — what happens to the boy who has always had permission from loving parents to be himself versus the one who scrupulously avoids rejection by conforming to expectations.

James Ivory has expressed disinterest in participating in a sequel, while Acimen and Guadagnino look forward to what comes next for Oliver and Elio. Their views suggest different ways to think about the story — one is to imagine the issues that may surface in the lives of two people who have been raised with different expectations. Would Elio find love with a woman or choose a man, having felt entirely free in his choice? Will Oliver be happy in his marriage of expectation, have other partners, or take control of his heart and leave? The other view, and where James Ivory’s beautiful script leaves us, is, at least for now, to contemplate the breathless perfection of a magical love that timed-out naturally because it happened between two people traveling different paths. And that provides our bittersweet ending: Elio smiling through a wash of tears into a crackling winter fire.

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman.

DVDebut: Taron Lexton's IN SEARCH OF FELLINI proves (very) light on the Fellini

Can a movie get by almost exclusively on charm and visual beauty at the expense of any kind believable story line? Prior to seeing IN SEARCH OF FELLINI, the first full-length film from South  African-born Taron Lexton (below), I would have thought this pretty doubtful, but after viewing his said-to-be-based-"mostly"-on-a-true-tale movie, I've got to admit the film works well enough to garner an OK rating.  As gloriously shot by Kevin Garrison in Verona, Milan, Rome and Venice, Italy (oh, yeah -- and in Ohio, too), the cinematography is often so breathtakingly beautiful that you'll be swept away long enough to forget, or maybe just ignore, the rather saccharine and unbelievable tale told here.

As written by Nancy Cartwright and Peter Kjenaas, that story is one of a young girl (played in adulthood by the very lovely Ksenia Solo, below), so pampered and secluded from real life by her mother (Maria Bello, shown at bottom, right) that the poor thing is completely unsuited for autonomous adulthood. So what does she do? She leaves her dying mother to head for Italy all by her lonesome and there to somehow meet her new hero, famed filmmaker Federico Fellini, whose movies she has suddenly discovered via a Fellini festival in her home town. (The film takes place a couple of decades back, as Fellini died in 1993.)

Too dumb to get to Rome where the filmmaker resides, she ends up in Verona, then Venice, before finally arriving at her real destination. But that's all to the good because, along the way, she and we get to view a raft of fabulous locations and also meet and fall in love with what must be the sweetest and most handsome straight male in all of Italy (Enrico Oetiker, below, with Ms Solo).

But onward she must go toward Signore Fellini, and so she also almost gets raped-while-being-filmed by a nasty hunk named (against type) Placido. Not to worry, despite its R rating, this is a feel-good movie par excellence, so when our heroine finally does encounter her hero, it is in perhaps via the most gorgeously lit and filmed restaurant scene in movie history -- with no dialog yet, so that we can instead imagine what is being shared by the two.

Yes, indeed, this is all so silly that it would defy belief -- were it not so lovely to look at. All the leads are super-attractive, and Italy, well, come on: You know how visually enchanting that country can be. So I would suggest placing you brain on hold for the film's 103 minutes and just giving yourself over to its many visual pleasures.

Inter-cut into the film are many moments from the real Fellini catalog. And while Mr. Lexton's work apes the master's, he has filmed his movie with mostly gorgeous actors, while Fellini preferred much more bizarre-looking casts. Both filmmakers give us fantasy based on reality. The master created his films from someplace deep and humane, while Lexton, whose view may be prettier, offers up what might best be called Fellini-light.

From Spotted Cow Entertainment and running 103 minutes, the movie -- after hitting VOD and digital outlets last month -- reaches DVD this coming Tuesday, January 23.

Luca Guadagnino's lush and luscious love story, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, enchants

As fresh, ripe, succulent and gorgeous as the peach that gets its own memorable scene in the film, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is as good as you've probably heard, a not-to-be-missed movie for anyone who treasures Italy, beauty, and tales of first-love, longing and rapturous consummation. Adapted by James Ivory from the novel by André Aciman and directed by Luca Guadagnino (shown below) with his usual visual flair and an even greater sense, this time 'round, for character building via the slow accretion of specific, exactingly chosen moments, the film casts a spell that never once breaks.

Here are longing, lust and love as you have seldom encountered them onscreen, and one of this unusual film's great strengths lies in the fact that, despite the difference in ages of the protagonists -- one is a graduate student, the other a highly gifted teenager -- so strong, growing and genuine is the attraction and bond between them that no taint of wrong-doing hovers over the relationship. This alone is an amazing accomplishment, thanks to the work of Ivory, Guadagnino and the two terrific star turns by actors Armie Hammer (shown above and two photos below) and Timothée Chalamet (the latter, below, seen to very different but also excellent effect in Lady Bird).

The atmosphere, as seems always the case in a Guadagnino film, is highly rarefied -- wealthy, cultured and entitled -- but here, finally, the leading characters are much easier to care about and their emotions more specifically explored than are those in I Am Love or A Bigger Splash, two of this director's earlier films.

The relationship that grows between Elio Perlman (Chalamet), the son of a famous scholar and comfortably assimilated Jew (played with his usual pitch-perfect poise and uncanny character exploration by Michael Stuhlbarg, below), and Oliver (Hammer), that scholar's research assistant for the summer, is a fraught one indeed.

As happens every summer, Elio must give up his bedroom in order to house the summer's new assistant, but this year's version is clearly a bit different. Big, blond and buffed to perfection, Oliver would seem the goy of one's dreams -- except that he, too, is Jewish, if we can judge from the Star of David he wears around his perfectly formed neck.

The feint-and-parry tactics via which the relationship begins eventually give way to, first, a "truce," as Oliver puts it, below, in a move that is charming, funny and also symbolic of just how much of himself our grad student is willing to commit, and slowly to all-out passion and sexual fulfillment.

Interestingly enough, Guadagnino holds back on anything highly explicit or full-frontal and instead concentrates on the passions and emotions generated in and by the relationship. One friend of mine missed the explicit and felt the director unnecessarily held back. Yet, given the immense beauty of our antagonists' faces and bodies, of which we see plenty (despite the lack of "money" shots), the gorgeous Italian surroundings, of which we also view a great deal, and the accent on longing and attraction, it seems clear that Guadagnino is going for emotional specificity over the sexual.

Despite how very good Mr. Hammer is in his role, the movie belongs to Chalamet, through whose eyes, mind, emotions and body we experience most of what occurs. If this young actor does not get at least an Academy nomination this year, we will know that, yet again, they're asleep at the wheel. Chalamet leads us through surprise, disbelief, attraction, exploration, passion and finally grief -- with every step honestly and fully taken, including that of the betrayal of his would-be girlfriend (Esther Garrel, above, right).

As usual in budding romances, the accent is on the here-and-now rather than where the relationship might be heading. Even so, this seasonal-only affair has such built-in limits that it must clearly be one of those "summer loves." What this means to Elio and to Oliver eventually comes clear, and the movie offers a double dose of knockout endings -- one a quiet conversation between father and son, the other in which the camera simply lingers and lingers as we watch and consider.

Call Me By Your Name should take its place as of the movies' great love stories, even if it is, finally, sadly one-sided.

From Sony Pictures Classics and running two hours and twelve minutes, after opening on the coasts a couple of weeks previous, the film hits South Florida (and elsewhere across the country) this Friday, December 22. Click here and then click on GET TICKETS on the task bar at top in order to find the theater(s) nearest you.

An Italian town brought to amazing, unusual life in Malmberg/Shellen's SPETTACOLO

You've got to hand it to Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen: In terms of finding unusual and meaningful subjects for their documentaries -- first Marwencol and now SPETTACOLO -- they rate with the best. Better yet, they don't simply find these subjects, they cover them well and truly, too. In the former documentary, we discovered a man who, after a brutal beating from which he nearly died, created his own World War II-based universe inhabited by dolls.

In their new documentary, the filmmakers (shown above, with Ms Shellen on the right) take us to a small, beautiful town, Monticchiello (below and further below), in Tuscany, Italy, in which its inhabitants present a yearly play, written and performed by the townspeople and attended by folk from all over, which details the townspeople's lives, problems and deepest concerns.

Both these films (the former directed by Mr. Malmberg, the latter by both him and Ms Shellen), along with Jeremy Workman's moving and provocative Magical Universe, prove as good a reason for watching documentaries as any films I know.

An additional perk here is that, for people who already love legitimate theater, as well as movies themselves, Spettacolo offers even more. In the course of this 91-minute doc about what you might describe as "living theater," not only do we get, in one particular scene, a kind of coup de théâtre, the movie pretty much becomes one of these in and of itself.

Immediately we meet the man, Andrea Cresti (above), who is in charge of each year's production. It is he who we get to know best, as he organizes, induces, cajoles and rehearses his friends and neighbors into getting ready for this year's production.

The filmmakers cleverly allow us to acknowledge their presence, as one of the townspeople, early on, points out that another is trying to be "funny for the camera." The play being presented here is extremely political, too. And this is not something forced into the picture. No, the townspeople's concerns this year turn out to be as current and important as those throughout so much of the rest of the world.

There's plenty of wit to be found here, too: One of the lines in the play -- "The government wipes its brow; our economy is saved!" -- is (perhaps intentionally) flubbed to that of  "The government wipes its butt...."We're also privy to the differences of opinion concerning what exactly this year's play should be about. Some people would prefer a subject light and fluffy -- just entertainment -- while others want to confront reality and maybe kick it in the teeth.

A big problem for this theater -- as it is for legitimate theater worldwide -- is inducing young people to join in and be part of the theatrical process, as either participants or audience. We witness this as Andrea tries (and fails) to convince one young man to join the troupe again this year. Even Andrea's son has moved on; he runs a local Bed & Breakfast in town, explaining to us that, "The future of Monticchiello is tourism."  We also view the young woman who schedules rehearsals, trying to work around the evening's sports event on television -- which means that tonight's rehearsal will begin at 10, even 10:30 pm.

In the course of the film we view rehearsals and arguments, get quite a good dose (via archival photos, above and below) of past productions, and meet and get to know, at least briefly, a good number of townspeople. Because the play's subject this year deals with politics, corruption, the economy, and the disparity between wealthy and poor, what suddenly happens midway through the documentary to the theater's prime financial sponsor could not be more succulently or sadly ironic.

And through it all remains Andrea: the community's, as well as the play's, fuse and ignition. We don't get to see the final play performed, of course, just the opening moments. But we understand it well from what we've viewed already. This documentary should attract a whole new audience to Monticchiello. Whether or not its yearly play will continue.... who knows?

From Grasshopper Film, in mostly Italian (with English subtitles) and a little English now and then, Spettacolo opens tomorrow, Wednesday, September 6, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, and in the weeks to come in cities across the country (it will hit the Los Angeles area on September 29 at Laemmle's Moncia Film Center). To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then scroll down to click on Where to Watch.