Dear friends,
I have now seen
'Ciao' and I loved it.
I think it is something really unique. It is very quiet and slow. It is very realistic, yet very, very delicate and poetic. It is a young filmmaker's film, solemn, but not precious, truly artistic, but not 'arty.' And it is very sad. It may not be for everyone. It may not even be for every gay and lesbian filmgoer. But me--I was rapt.
The photography is gorgeous--seriously so. The actors are beautiful, yes, but they are believable. The situation, itself, may at first be a bit artificial, stagy, but as the modest, economical story develops, it becomes more and more real--painfully so.
The dialogue does seem stilted at first, but slowly you realize that the situation is actually awkward, the characters have just met, and their awkward dialogue is
real. Their speech becomes relaxed and believeably fluent as they become more comfortable with one another. Their faces, already beautiful, filling the screen, slowly open like flowers.
The faces! The eyes! Like Bergman. By sheer coincidence, I sat in the back of the theater. I was so happy I did--because so many of the close, close, closeups really allowed me to
watch the faces rather than
look at an ear or a nose.
The director had the courage to hold the camera, at certain points, without edit or pan, and keep it still, for long, long moments, and look at a tree or an empty room as the two characters talked "inconsequentially" off screen. The music is spare, a chord here, a note there, or just--silent.
Obviously, I can really have a high tolerance for slow, quiet films, and this may not be your cup of tea, BUT--one of my latest fave raves is Danny Boyle's
'Slumdog Millionaire,' which is an energetic, fast-paced, high-spirited riot of color and movement and sound teeming with dramatic, picaresque characters in far-fetched situations, so--try and give quiet '
Ciao' a chance--I really, really love it.
Unfortunately,
'Ciao' may not get that chance. I went to see the Saturday 7:30pm screening--and there were barely 40 people in the theater. Then one old man, bored, walked out. (Too bad for him, he just missed the hottest kiss (kisses) of any screen anywhere.) Then about half the audience left quickly during the closing credits.
Sigh. They may not have realized that the 7:30 screening was followed by a Q&A with the director,
Yen Tan. He is small and slight and very quick-witted and self-deprecating and polite and, yes, apologetic. He wryly said that he had first planned to make this a fast, funny comedy (literally), but the material and the co-writer and actor,
Alessandro Calza (Andrea), dictated otherwise. He apologized saying that he, himself, might have been a little indulgent in holding a beat here or there a bit too long--so
I spoke up and said I loved the silences and the rhythms of the film, and he thanked me with real sincerity.
Sorry, didn't mean to be long-winded. I'll just mention--one scene towards the end of the film may resonate strongly with many Brokies: on their last night, Jeff (
Adam Neal Smith), takes Andrea out to a bar with a western theme (it is in Dallas) and, with dialogue totally masked by the music, they now finally talk easily, as the cowboy hatted crowd in the foreground dance. Silent, but eloquent. It's one of MY favorite images of
'Ciao.' 
