ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[southendmd]

AKA "Divorce Italian Style"

Plot:  A married Sicilian baron falls in love with his cousin and vows to wed her, but with divorce illegal he must concoct a crime of passion to do away with his wife.

[Lynne]

From Wiki:

Europa '51 (also known as The Greatest Love) is a 1952 Italian neorealist film directed by Roberto Rossellini, starring Ingrid Bergman and Alexander Knox.

Irene (Ingrid Bergman) and George Girard (Alexander Knox) are a wealthy couple living in post-war Rome with their son Michele (Sandro Franchina). During a dinner party, Michele constantly tries to get his mother's attention, but Irene is more interested in being a good hostess to her guests than being an attentive mother. As a result, Michele attempts suicide by falling through a stairwell several stories, fracturing his hip.

At the hospital, Irene promises to never leave Michele and to be more attentive, but he dies soon after from a blood clot. Irene, shocked by her son's death, is bedridden for ten days, before enlisting the help of Andrea Casatti (Ettore Giannini) to help her overcome her grief. Being a communist, he takes her to the poorer parts of Rome and leads her into donating her time and money to help people there. While there, she gives the money for a boy's medical treatment, helps a woman with six children to find a job at a factory (where she has a life changing experience working for a day in order to fill in for the woman), and cares for a woman of bad reputation who is dying of consumption.

As a result of helping these people, she spends less and less time at home. Her husband comes to the conclusion that she is having an affair with Andrea, which causes her to leave him. In addition, she is picked up by the police after helping a boy who had committed a theft evade arrest (she had told him to turn himself in).

While in custody, the husband and the authorities decide to put her in a mental institution. At the end of the film, she is up for review on whether she would stay there permanently with the result being that her philosophy of helping people was dangerous for the fragile post-war society. Therefore, she becomes a permanent member of the institution.

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

I loved this movie....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274497/


Fate ignoranti, Le (2001)
Alternate Titles:
The Ignorant Fairies, or:
His Secret Life 





Directed by: Ferzan Ozpetek

with

Stefano Accorsi ...  Michele
Margherita Buy ...  Antonia


Review Summary
A woman dealing with the loss of her mate learns he had a surprising secret life in this drama from Italy. Antonia (Margherita Buy) is a doctor who finds both challenges and rewards in her work with people with AIDS, who has also enjoyed a long and seemingly happy relationship with her husband Massimo (Andrea Renzi). When Massimo is killed in an auto wreck, Antonia is crushed and turns away from her work and her friends; while she tries to reach out to her mother Veronica (Erica Blanc), Veronica is too emotionally distant to be of much help. As Antonia struggles to come to terms with her grief, she discovers to her shock that her husband had been having an affair through much of their marriage, and her confusion is intensified when she learns that Massimo's lover was a man, Michele (Stefano Accorsi). Antonia confronts Michele, who would prefer not to say anything about Massimo, but Antonia is persistent, and in time the two open up to each other about the man they both deeply loved. As a friendship grows between Antonia and Michele, she has another surprise in store -- she finds she's pregnant with Massimo's child. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B01EFDA1030F933A1575AC0A9649C8B63
His Secret Life: A Dead Husband's Mistress Turns Out to Be a Mister (2001)
By A. O. SCOTT (Published: September 20, 2002)

[Fran]

From IMDb: "Gomorra" is a contemporary Neapolitan mob drama that exposes Italy's criminal underbelly by telling five stories of individuals who think they can make their own compact with Camorra, the area's Mafia.

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

Another one I obsessively loved....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119248/ 

Hamam (1997) 

Also Known As:

Bagno turco, Il (Italy)
Hamam: The Turkish Bath (UK)
Steam: The Turkish Bath (USA)



Writer (Story and Screenplay)
and
Director:
Ferzan Ozpetek

Alessandro Gassman ...  Francesco
Francesca d'Aloja ...  Marta
Mehmet Günsür ...  Mehmet

Find your place in life -- mesmerizing!, 3 July 2002
Author: Tim Evanson ([email protected]) from Washington, D.C.
An official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, "Steam (The Hamam)" is a mesmerizing, astounding film that grips you almost from the beginning. Francesco and Marta are a feuding, materialistic, adulterous married couple [living in Rome]. But when Francesco inherits a Turkish bath from an aunt he barely knew, he heads to Instanbul to sell it. There, he is seduced away from his high-tech, wealth-obsessed life by the slow, human pace of life led by the people of the ghetto. Francesco finds his bitterness salved by the love of the family who manages the hamam, his heart stolen by the family's hunky son Mehmet, and his too-fast life slowed by the need to rebuild and maintain the hamam. And then Marta arrives, wondering what the heck has gotten into her husband... The film even has a surprise ending. The musical soundtrack was a major hit on the dance circuit. And the film itself became notorious when the Turkish government refused to nominate it for a best foreign film Oscar because of its homosexual content. (The controversy led the Academy to change the way foreign films are nominated.) "Steam"  is MUST-see, ranking right up there with "Muriel's Wedding" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral."

[memento]

AKA: Italian for Beginners

From IMDB: A young minister, a widower, is temporarily assigned to a church whose suspended pastor drove parishioners away; he stays at a hotel where he meets Jørgen, who's alone approaching middle age. Jørgen's friend Finn, a temperamental restaurant manager, may be about to be fired. Finn's assistant is Giulia, a lovely young Italian who prays for a husband. Olympia, a clumsy bakery clerk, has an ornery father; Karen, a hairdresser, has a mother who is very ill. The paths of these six characters cross at church, in the restaurant, at the hotel, and at an Italian class at the local adult school. Loneliness, grief, solace, romance, and love may meet 'nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.'

=aside= John
Welcome to the game.

[southendmd]

Plot:  On a quest to find out what happened to his missing brother, a scientist, his nephew and their mountain guide discover a fantastic and dangerous lost world in the center of the earth.

One scene involves Mount Vesuvius in Italy.

=aside=
Phew, there aren't a lot of Js in Italian!

[Fran]

Also known as:  Beauty in Trouble

From IMDb:  I recently saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival. The film's title and in fact much of the outline of the film is from the Robert Graves poem "Beauty in Trouble." Jan Hrebejk directs a screenplay by Petr Jrchovský from a story by Hrebejk and Jrchovský. The story begins in 2002 when Prague is hit by one of those devastating 100-year floods that destroys the household of Marcela (Ana Ceislerová) and Jarda (Roman Luknár) and their two children Kuba (Adam Misik) and Lucina (Michaela Mrvikova). Because of the moldy conditions where they now live, Kuba's asthma is life- threatening. Marcela works and Jarda runs a chop shop out of the garage they live next to. Jarda's shady occupation runs him afoul of the law and one of his theft victims becomes infatuated with Marcela. Evzen Benes (Josef Abrhám) is a wealthy businessman who divides his time between Italy and the Czech Republic and offers to care Marcela and her two kids. Jana Brejchová is Marcella's mother who lives with her common-law husband called Uncle Richie, played by Jirí Schmitzer in probably the film's best role. Rounding out this excellent cast is Emília Vasaryova as Jarda's mentally fragile mother who gives any money she gets to the local religious charlatan. There is a lot going on here for a small film, and it's good story with a great script and a lot of comic relief. Ales Brezina provides the music score with additional music from Czech singer Raduza and Irish singer Glen Hansard. There is a lot to like about this film and I would give it an 8.0 out of 10 and recommend it.

[memento]

(picture of the book)

From IMDB: The incredible story of how Lucky Luciano known as the "Chairman of the Board" of La Cosa Nostra - The Mafia - used his power to aid the US Government during WWII to help protect the docks and mainland from Nazi saboteurs and further helped the Allies with the invasion of Europe. His rise to power from obscurity, his modernization of an organization of very flawed characters, his deportation to Italy, and in his final chapter his falling in love for the first time ever with Igea Lusconi, and his death from undetermined causes.

[HerrKaiser]

The broadway musical was brought to the screen by an Italian production company and shot in Rome.