Odeon Original Sound
Piazza Strozzi 2
tel. 055/214068
*for screentimes see the events listing
October 13, 14, 17, 18, 19
A DANGEROUS METHOD
David Cronenberg’s drama looks at the fraught relationship between Sigmund Freud, his protégé Carl Jung, and their shared patient Sabina, the hysterical guinea pig in the middle of the experiment that led Freud to publish his famous psychoanalytic theory and Jung to go his separate way. ‘Maintaining a cool body temperature throughout, “A Dangerous Method” shows extreme attentiveness to the subtler peculiarities of its strange story’ (Variety). ‘Cronenberg’s achievement is to have made “an action movie with ideas.” The film may be very heavy on talk indeed but when the dialogue is as sharp and double edged as it is here, that is not a problem’ (The Independent).
October 18
FAHRENHEIT 451
Francois Truffaut’s loose adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic 1951 sci-fi novel is itself a classic. This is a world in which instead of putting out fires, firefighters burn books at the behest of a paranoid and repressive government determined on thought control. ‘With a serious and even terrifying theme, this excursion into science fiction has been thoughtfully directed… and there is adequate evidence of light touches to bring welcome and needed relief to a sombre and scarifying subject’ (Variety). ‘Holy Smoke! What a pretentious and pedantic production he has made of Ray Bradbury’s futuristic story’ (New York Times). ‘A weirdly gay little picture that assails with both horror and humor all forms of tyranny over the mind of man…Fahrenheit 451 may not prove to be the flash point of the average moviegoer, but it should work up a gentle glow among the admirers of Director Francois Truffaut’ (Time).
Astra 2
Piazza Beccaria
tel. 055/2343666
October 17
COWBOYS & ALIENS
1873, Arizona Territory: A stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde. ‘The key to its success lies in the determination by everyone involved to play the damn thing straight. Even the slightest goofiness, the tiniest touch of camp, and the whole thing would blow sky high. But it doesn’t’ (The Hollywood Reporter). ‘A leaden mash-up of western and science-fiction elements that ends up noisy, grotesque and unappealing’ (Los Angeles Times). ‘Cowboys versus aliens is a concept that may make you smile in anticipation, but wipe that smile off your face before buying your ticket’ (Wall Street Journal).
October 24
THE GUARD
The Guard is a comedic, fish-out-of-water tale of murder, blackmail, drug trafficking and rural police corruption, and the two cops who must join forces to take on an international drug-smuggling gang, an unorthodox Irish police officer and a straitlaced FBI agent. ‘”The Guard” is a pleasure. I can’t tell if it’s really [bleeping] dumb or really [bleeping] smart, but it’s pretty [bleeping] good’ (Roger Ebert). ‘Among the most purely entertaining films of the year, which cuts its laughter with a dose of Celtic melancholy. It still delivers cop/action requirements-shoot-outs, revenges, daring deeds-and chances are, we’ll be quoting lines from this forever’ (Empire). ‘Hip, lurid and improbably lovable, “The Guard” is easily the best guy-love comedy of the summer, with Cheadle and Gleeson’s riffs and repartee tumbling back and forth as if they’ve been trading lies over Guinness forever’ (Washington Post).
The British Institute
Lungarno Guicciardini 9
tel. 055/267781
New season: ‘With Great Emotion’: Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini
Concluding the Rossellini War Trilogy showcasing the classic neo-realism for which this director is best-known, and which caught the attention of Ingrid Bergman, leading to their personal and professional partnership.
October 19
PAISÀ
Paisà (Paisan; 1946) is the second film in Rossellini’s war trilogy. Here, in Rossellini offers a six-chapter chronicle of war-time suffering, each chapter geographically distinct, reflecting the Nazi surge and then withdrawal up the peninsula from Sicily to Naples, Rome, Florence, Emilia Romagna and the Po Valley. Compassion, defiance and futility are key elements in this collection of stories making up a mosaic of the Italian Resistance filmed in the ruins shortly after the historical events themselves had devastated the country. It ‘combined documentary footage, non-professional actors and a simple screenplay often improvised on the spot. The result was one of the most realistic visions ever put on screen in a fiction film’ (Turner Classic Movies). In English and Italian, with English subtitles.
October 26
GERMANIA ANNO ZERO
(Germany Year Zero; 1948) completing Rossellini’s war trilogy, is one of the bleakest movies ever made. The story of Edmund and his travails amidst the ruins of bombed out Berlin is ‘arguably the most harrowing and nihilistic … a caustic portrait of dehumanization and social disintegration. Filmed soon after the unexpected death of Rossellini’s young son, Romano, in 1946, the protagonist, Edmund, becomes a tragic symbol of national guilt and personal pain: the embodiment of lost innocence; the uncertainty of profound change; the guilt of survival; the seeming hopelessness of the future… Inevitably, like the aimless Edmund, Rossellini, too, searches for an elusive meaning to an inconsolable tragedy’ (Strictly Film School). In German, with English subtitles.
50 DAYS OF INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
October 20 to December 9, Odeon Cinema, Florence
With 50 days of cinema, 150 screenings, nine separate film festivals and seven special events, the fifth edition of 50 Days of International Cinema in Florence promises to be an exciting mega-festival featuring a wide range of cinema, much of it either in English or in other languages with English subtitles. In the line-up includes the French Film Festival, concentrating on contemporary French film, including a recent Cannes winner and a world premiere; the Nordic Film Festival, featuring recent Finnish films; an Ethno-musical Film Festival; a Women’s Festival; an International Documentary Film Festival; a Contemporary Arts Film Festival; the Florence Queer Cinema Festival; the River to River Indian Film Festival; and a number of other events focusing on Italian cinema. Look for more details in TF 151.
