At the FSLC, OPEN ROADS returns with a bevy of new Italian films. First up: Ferzan Ozpetek and the Taviani brothers

Mark your calendars for May 31 through June 6, as the popular series, OPEN ROADS: NEW ITALIAN CINEMA, now in its 18th year, returns to the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Co-presented by the FSLC and Istituto Luce Cinecittà, this year's series offers 15 new Italian films --narrative or documentary, plus a pair of " classics" that perfectly complement two of the new films to be seen: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Night of the Shooting Stars (above) will be shown in conjunction with the appearance of the brothers final film (Vittorio died this past April), Rainbow: A Private Affair, while Marco Ferreri's famous The Ape Woman will screen alongside a new documentary (below) about this iconoclast filmmaker, Marco Ferreri: Dangerous but Necessary.

In past years TrustMovies has often viewed all (or almost all) of the Open Roads films, but this year, due to age, infirmities and screening links that don't always work, he has only managed to see a half dozen of the selections. Still, these were enough to make the series, as always, a "must." Below are his thoughts on the first two films. More will come over the days to follow. You can view the entire Opens Roads schedule by clicking here and then clicking on the individual films for more information and/or on the particular screening time in order to procure tickets.

Ferzan Ozpetek is one of my favorite filmmakers, with a resume full of fine films, most of which deal with subjects and themes close to my own mind and heart -- from the intersection of art and life to sexuality, passion and love (often GLBT-related) -- so the opportunity to see anything new from this fellow is not to be missed. His latest, NAPLES IN VEILS (Napoli velata), seems to me a kind of culmination of all that's important to Signore Ozpetek, brought to life with the kind of beauty, passion and art that seems near-extraordinary, even for the likes of him. (The filmmaker is shown below, center, with the two gorgeous stars of his new film: Giovanna Mezzogiorno (right) and Alessandro Borghi (left).

Ozpetek's movies are usually eye-poppingly beautiful to view, and Naples in Veils is no exception -- except that it is exceptionally so. The director and his cinematographer (Gian Filippo Corticelli) give us the architecture (exterior, interior), the sea, the penthouses, basements, highways and byways of Naples as we've never seen them. The movie is such a visual treat, in fact, that if it were merely a travelog, I'd probably have been thrilled.

Yet the tale it tells is even more unusual. As written by Ozpetek, along with Gianni Romoli and Valia Santella, Naples in Veils begins with the murder of a husband by his wife, with their young daughter a witness to the result. We move to that daughter, now grown into Ms Mezzogiorno, attending a very bizarre "Nativity Scene as performance art" (above). At this event, staged, I believe, in the very apartment in which that murder took place, our heroine meets a young man (Signore Borghi) and is soon trysting in the hottest sex scene Ozpetek has yet filmed. Our couple spends a passionate (and quite versatile) night together night and arranges to meet the following day at the museum.

From there, the movie turns into a major mystery -- not simply of what, why and how something awful has happened but even more about the mysteries of character, identity, and the why and how of who we come to love. It seems to me that all of Ozpetek's major concerns are mirrored here: passionate love vs the stable, caring variety; the place and meaning of art to our lives; and even the very act of storytelling itself (the filmmaker borrows a page out of Paul Haggis' wondrous Third Person). And all of this is given to us wrapped in the most spectacularly beautiful packaging.

I'd try to stop myself from overpraising this film, but I don't think that is even possible. Yes, Naples in Veils is all over the place, yet every place it ventures is worth the trip. The movie -- in Italian with English subtitles and running 113 minutes -- screens at Open Roads  this Saturday June 2 at 8:30pm, and next Thursday, June 7, at 2:30 pm. Click here for more information and tickets.

It always sad to reach the end of a filmmaking career, particularly when that career has encompassed so many interesting and worthwhile films (and not just the usual suspects: The Night of the Shooting Stars and Padre Padrone) such as Allonsanfan, Good Morning Babylon and especially the more recent Caesar Must Die. With the death this past April of Vittorio Taviani, pictured below, right, with his brother Paolo, the duo's final film is now upon us.

I only wish RAINBOW: A PRIVATE AFFAIR had proven a better good-bye. God knows, the movie is lovely to look at, with crack cinematography by Simone Zampagni and sets and costumes so redolent of the movie's time frame (World War II Italy). Trouble is, these lustrous and nostalgic visuals (as below) call so much attention to themselves, they often overwhelm the movie's story, told in very fractured fashion by the filmmakers, who themselves adapted to the screen the novel by Beppe Fenoglio about Italian partisans in WWII.

The story has to do with a young partisan, played by the usually excellent Luca Marinelli (at right, below and at bottom), who, here, seem mostly in some sort of daze, on the run from Mussolini's Black Shirts, as he keeps flashing back to various memories of a love triangle between himself, his best friend Giorgio (Lorenzo Richelmy of Netflix's Marco Polo, dancing above, right) and their would-be girlfriend Fulvia (played by Valentina Bellè, above, left, and at bottom, center).

Simultaneously, our sort-of hero travels through the mist and over hill and valley -- first looking for Giorgio, and then after the latter has been captured by the Black Shirts, trying to find and capture a Black Shirt to trade for Giorgio's release. On some level the plot here makes little sense realistically, but the Tavianis seem to have imagined it to be a kind of fantasy anyway, so perhaps that doesn't matter much. The past, in all its pristine beauty, resonates most. The present, in all its degradation, violence and torture, registers as more of a dream.

If so, it's a dream that isn't nearly as strong as it might be. I am glad to have seen the film, but it will not remain in my memory as one of the brothers' best. Rainbow: A Private Affair (dumb title. the addition of "Rainbow" to the original Italian title is just silly, even if the song Over the Rainbow figures as part of the nostalgic past), in Italian with English subtitles and running 84 minutes, screens twice at Opens Roads: Friday, June 1, at 2pm and Monday, June 4, at 6:30pm. Click here for more info or to purchase tickets.

There'll be more to come on Open Roads over the following few days.
Stay tuned...

Shared humanity trumps politics & passion: the Taviani brothers' CAESAR MUST DIE

What is it about movies that offer up the subject of theater programs in prison that makes these films such slam dunks? I don't think I've seen a single one -- from the riveting American documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars to the wonderfully moving and funny Spanish narrative film, My Prison Yard -- that didn't ring my bell loud and long. Now comes another, this one boasting some very classy bona fides: CAESAR MUST DIE.  Written and directed by the estimable Taviani Brothers, Paolo and Vittorio (with quite a bit of help from a certain Willie the Shake and his play about power, politics, trust and loyalty, Julius Caesar), this newest theater-in-prison movie rings that bell once again.

Yet why this should be so -- hugely so, at that -- is more difficult to pin down. But let me try. First off, the Tavianis combine so effort-lessly and well the documentary style with narrative technique while incorporating Shakespeare's great play (without giving us nearly all of it) that their film becomes a very odd, off-kilter work all its own. We're kept alert and suspended by the back-and-forth use of story-telling, cinematography that goes from color to black-and-white and back again, characters that are both their prisoner selves and people we know from history (and Shakespeare's work). Finally all these meld into one very real, if quite short (the film lasts but 76 minutes) movie that is part documentary (these are real prisoners, really acting Shakespeare), part narrative, and all Taviani.

The Tavianis (above, in color and black-and-white -- with Paolo on the left and Vittorio at right) begin with the performance of the play's finale and then the curtain call and applause from an understandably excited audience. Then we go back in time to meet the inmates and watch as they audition and are cast in various roles. Most of these guys seem like natural performers, but some, in particular, stand out and are promptly cast in the leading roles. Of special note are the prisoners who end up playing Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Marc Anthony and the soothsayer.

Caesar, in particular (Giovanni Arcuri, above, center), possesses enormous bearing and strength, while Brutus (Salvatore Striano, seated below) has a marvelous face that seems to mirror his every small change of feeling.

As Cassius, Cosimo Rega (below, right) offers quite the right lean and hungry look, even if he does seem also to be eating quite well. Antonio Frasca (center, left) makes a stentorian and rather endearing Mark Anthony, while Francesco Carusone's quirky body movements (two photos below) and sense of derangement, put to odd use in his audition, prove perfectly suited to the role of the soothsayer.

In the end credits, we are told that certain of these actors have gone on to performing careers -- quite understandable -- once their prison time was completed. Others, serving life sentences, are not so lucky. One especially sad moment occurs when a prisoner notes that, once you have discovered art, your prison cell becomes unbearable.

The use of the prison facilities -- where the rehearsals and indeed some of the actual performance takes place (the Tavianis make no real differentiation here, which is all to the good for it makes every moment count in terms of immediacy and meaning -- works spectacularly well, for the prison, with its walls and guards, not only mirrors our increasingly closed society but also makes the play appear to fit well into any period, past, present or future.

Though the whole of Shakespeare's play is not here, there is enough if it to please fans of the Bard and may send some of the them immediately back to read the work once again. So what is it, then, that makes this movie so powerful? In part, it's due to the combination of these actual prisoners performing a play that reflects well their own society and ours, creating a kind of life-mirrors-art-mirrors-life situation, the ramifications of which keeps bubbling up in the play, the actors, and the culture of prison life.

And then it happens. A singular moment that I have never seen before in this play. (In fact, it is one of the things that makes this a movie.) It takes place during the curtain call, when one character helps lift another to his feet and their faces meet. In that single moment -- which we get to see twice, though it is fleeting and not commented upon at all -- everything becomes clear. Forgiveness, redemption and understanding are present and accounted for, as the simple gesture cuts to the heart of the matter, derailing the corruption, pettiness, politics and ambitions that have preceded it.

The gesture goes beyond everything we have so far seen and tells us, yes, we're all in this together. Suddenly the scurvy politics of the play, as well as the ugly deeds -- petty drug deals or Mafia-sponsored murders -- done by these men and which landed them in prison don't begin to compare to the brotherhood we've just witnessed. As usual, with the Tavianis, humanity trumps all. This, as much as anything, is what makes this odd hybrid of a movie so stirring and memorable. And humane.

Caesar Must Die, from Adopt Films, opens Wednesday in New York City at Film Forum and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and then moves to various playdates elsewhere around the country. Click here, then click on Caesar Must Die, then scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, which are listed, top to bottom, in order of their opening.