Fast-rising Italian writer/directors Fratelli D'Innocenzo (brothers Damiano & Fabio) earned a passel of International Film Fest awards & nominations with this frustratingly opaque fable about Rome suburbanites and kids hitting nothing but life’s wrong notes and speed bumps. The brothers have their gifts: holding tone & a deliberate pace, edit-friendly composition & merging variated acting styles (mannered to non-pro naturalist), psychological engagement with their characters (though the adult women get short shrift), but it all feels directionless. (Intentionally?) And they seem to know it, opening wih a long introduction, something of an apologia, blaming the vagaries of what’s to come (possibly true/possibly not) on a ‘found’ diary, picked up after the fact and arranged/partially completed by our unreliable narrator. As if they were washing their hands of responsibility. Meanwhile, try and figure out what’s driving all the bad parenting, sexual curiosity, suicide pacts (or accidental poisoning?) on display during a short summer break. Perhaps Il Fratelli might try walking before attempting an existential Olympic hop, bound & jump.
DOUBLE-BILL: Robert Altman’s SHORT CUTS/’93 springs to mind. Would Fratelli D’Innocenzo know it?
No comments:
Post a Comment