TIFF 2015 - Film # 11

Reason for pick - director of We Have a Pope, The Sons Room

There was something that Italian director Nanni Moretti captured that resonated with me. His semi-autobiographical film deals with a director who is shooting a film while her mother is dying.

Both my parents passed away decades ago, and for those of you who have already gone through this experience, this cycle of life, will probably agree that the experience is somewhat surreal. The surreal quality acts as an insulator that keeps grief and sadness at bay. For me, it manifested in a 'waking dream' like state where you perform your everyday functions, but you keep thinking thoughts of what you have…

Review In A Nutshell:

There are traces in Mia Madre that speak to me, most notably through my perspective as a nurse, seeing families in distress as the idea of their loved one’s approach to departing soon comes to actualisation. One can see the traces in Mia Madre that its protagonist’s mother is deteriorating, but she can’t seem to grasp such an outcome and appears to focus on aspects that points towards signs of improvement, thus making it harder for herself as all signs begin to point south. The film demonstrates how such a circumstance could intervene and consume a person’s life; capturing the perspective of a close relative in attempting to cope with such stress as they attempt to…

41/100

[Originally written as part of my third dispatch from Cannes '15 for The Dissolve.]

Once considered the Italian Woody Allen, Nanni Moretti (Caro Diario, The Son’s Room) returns to Cannes this year with Mia Madre, which is either a cutting satire about the filmmaking process or an oneiric portrait of a film director’s emotional turmoil as she (Margherita Buy) tends to her dying mom (Giulia Lazzarini). I say “either” rather than “both” because Moretti, who also plays a supporting role as the director’s brother, never finds a way to integrate the two tonally—half the film is a broad comedy, the other half a sober dreamscape. The comedic half works considerably better, thanks in large part to John Turturro’s self-mocking…

Despite being a very personal film for Moretti, effectively looking back at the filming of his last film We Have A Pope where his mother passed away, he still manages to take an objective stance, muting what could have been a sweeping emotional recollection. Although the director did use some of his mother's own clothes to dress the actress playing the sick mother, so there was some exercising of ghosts going on during the filming process.

john Turturro's egotistical thespian threatens to steal the show but Moretti uses him sparingly to lighten the mood where needed. There is nice scene in the final act that adds some humanity to his Barry Huggins character, levelling out what we had seen from…

Não sei por onde começar. Me parece às vezes imperfeito, muitas imagens não são exatamente novas. Com ele, vou do entendimento doloroso profundo à alegria pelo novo que se mostra através da presença de John Turturro. O modo como seu personagem se desenvolve e, principalmente, o modo como Marguerita olha para ele é lindíssimo e muito muito novo.

Trata-se também de uma bela homenagem para a doce Ágata Apicella Moretti. Mãe do Nanni que pudemos ver em Aprile. O olhar da atriz que faz a mãe lembra o dela, que era também professora, e que também deve ter deixado grandes e belas marcas em seus alunos e alunas.

Gosto muito também do entendimento que Nanni Moretti tem do set como…

Sezionato nelle sue svariate parti e facce, la pellicola presenta tanti buoni spunti. Il difetto, a mio modesto parere, sta però nel non approfondirne realmente nessuno.
I dialoghi e le immagini dovrebbero essere inviti alla riflessione, momenti in cui condividere con il pubblico pensieri, paure, frustrazioni e dolori di una vita, ma rimangono troppo in superficie.

Il film procede stancamente e, elemento che più di ogni altro ho trovato poco riuscito, si ripete sempre uguale sino al suo concludersi, senza un sussulto, uno strappo, un cambio di rotta. Le impressioni iniziali che si percepiscono, su come la storia dovrebbe svolgersi, vengono tutte confermate, facendo perdere un pò di mordente alla narrazione.

Alcuni aspetti, inoltre, sono troppo ostentati e riproposti (la…

Dieser Film ist eine Diskussion über die Validität der Autorentheorie, die ohne jeden Elan geführt wird. Einerseits sehen wir die Versuche einer Regisseurin ihre emotionale Distanz zu ihrem Umfeld auf ihre Regieanweisungen zu übertragen. Andererseits werden diese Szenen mit Momenten konterkariert, die zeigen wie sehr sich das Team und Ereignisse in ihrem Privatleben auf die Inszenierung auswirken. Die Themen der Intentionalität und der vermeintlichen Eindeutigkeit sind in fast jeder Szene zu finden. Problematisch ist das, da es sich hierbei nicht um den Kern der Story handelt, die Themen aber mehr Platz einnehmen als das potentiell emotionale Familiendrama. Nicht dass es auf die Frage eine eindeutige Antwort gäbe, aber in dem Moment, in dem die Protagonistin gefragt wurde was denn die…

A movie director begins to unravel on the set when her grief of her dying mother forces her to confront the shadow side of her character and her interpersonal deficiencies.

I was reminded again this week that the only sure path toward the precious diamond of our true self is found through deep love and deep suffering. The hard grief of losing a mother is often more than sufficient for this purpose. But when the cantankerous and belligerent lead actor on your movie set happens to be played by John Turturro, you have the perfect storm for your own character transformation.

In 2019 my own mother died. Recently, my 102 year old aunt, my mom’s closest sister, wrote me a…