Astra 2
Piazza Beccaria
tel. 055/2343666
November 3
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
Paolo Sorrentino’s
first English-language film features Sean Penn as Cheyenne, a prissy
retired Goth rocker living in Dublin who goes in search of his
estranged father’s persecutor, an ex-Nazi war criminal active at
Auschwitz now hiding out in the United States. Penn’s wildly
eccentric performance is ‘brave and exasperating in equal measure’
(The Guardian)
‘The film crackles with style and invention’ (The
Independent). ‘It’s always a
curious and imaginative film. Penn is fun to watch and Sorrentino is
a bold storyteller, unafraid of diversions in story and tone’ (Time
Out). David Byrne’s excellent
soundtrack is just right.
November 7
LARRY CROWNE
Affable, amiable
Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) loses his job and heads to his local college
to start over. There he becomes part of a colourful community of
outcasts, also-rans and the overlooked all trying to find a better
future for themselves, and develops an unexpected crush on his
teacher. ‘If you’re looking for a movie you can take your parents
or young children to without fear of embarrassment or the need for
endless explanations, this is the one’ (New
York Post). ‘Movie stars may be less
valued than they used to be, but it’s still puzzling to see Tom Hanks
and Julia Roberts stuck in a romantic comedy as flat-footed and tone
deaf as Larry Crowne'(Variety).
The British Institute
Lungarno Guicciardini 9
tel. 055/267781
‘With Great
Emotion’: Ingrid Bergman and Roberto
Rossellini
November 2, 8pm
STROMBOLI
Stromboli (1950) is
the first of the five films Rossellini made with Bergman. Set on the
oppressive and menacing volcanic island where Bergman is the Nordic
Karin who marries local fisherman Antonio to escape her complicated
past as a prisoner of war and then, as an outsider, increasingly
chafes against her status on the island. ‘Praised as an example of
cinema devoid of the excesses of formal artifice, a “lesson in
humility,” its achievement is less modest: a sequence of
tunny-fishing remains one of the most amazing ever filmed’ (Time
Out). ‘Clearly a pivotal film in both
Rossellini and Bergman’s careers, representing a unique fusion of the
documentary form with Hollywood melodrama’ (Turner
Classic Movies).
(Italian full version
‘director’s cut,’ in Italian with English subtitles)
November 9, 8pm
EUROPA 51
Europa 51 (1951),
‘The second collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid
Bergman…is a provocative, haunting, and compassionate examination
of the isolating and often misunderstood path of personal redemption
and spiritual service in contemporary society. Composed of
alternating sequences of daytime and night time episodes, the film
presents a recurring visual dichotomy that illustrates the polarizing
division between wealth and poverty, spirituality and materialism,
vanity and humility, selfishness and benevolence’ (Strictly
Film School). Bergman plays tortured
Irene Girard, American socialite in post-war Rome in this
metaphysical melodrama.
(In Italian with English
subtitles)
