Italy

Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Celu Qui Doit Mourir (He Who Must Die) represented director Jules Dassin’s first professional collaboration with his future wife, Greek actress Melina Mercouri. Filmed on the island of Crete, the story concerns the efforts by the townspeople to stage their annual Passion Play. The priest in charge of the play, anxious not to rock the boat with the occupying Turks, refuses aid and comfort to a rebellious priest from a battle-scarred village. But three townspeople do their best to help the visiting cleric, an act that splits the town right down the middle and forces the previously benevolent Turkish overlord to take decisive action. Melina Mercouri offers a dry run of her Never on Sunday character as the town trollop.Read More »

Made in Milan is a 1990 short documentary film about fashion designer Giorgio Armani preparing for a show and discusses his ideas about fashion, his family history and the city of Milan it was directed by Martin Scorsese.Read More »

The film won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Description: Robert Colomb, a famous TV newscaster, is married to Catherine, but is continually unfaithful. He is about to replace his current mistress, Mireille, with Jacqueline when he meets, and becomes fascinated with Candice. He takes her along on an assignment in Kenya and later establishes an “arrangement” with her in Amsterdam. When he tells Catherine about the affair, she is silent. He is assigned to Viet Nam, tells Candice their affair is over and, to his astonishment, discovers that is more than acceptable to her as she as tired of him. Returning from a Vietnamese prison he decides to return also to Catherine, but discovers she has made a new life for herself. He ponders whether he should break into her life again, rekindle their old love or just disappear from her life. While he is pondering, Catherine—a big hand for the little lady—makes the decision for this selfish and conceited ass. Written by Les Adams (IMDB).Read More »

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1978. It would be interesting to bail up the panel now and ask them why they gave Ferreri’s film the award (in a tied decision with in tie with Jerzy Skolimowski’s The Shout). I suspect that they would not remember, let alone be able to explain why. In the 70s the absurdist, non-conventional, sexually-candid aspects of the film were all qualities that were regarded as inherently significant but times change and like so many films of its era, the meaning is now far less apparent. Broadly speaking, Ferreri’s first English-language film is a Fellini-esque portrait of the male species under attack from castrating women. Gérard Depardieu stars as a lighting technician who is raped multiple times by the members of the feminist theatrical group he works for. He subsequently finds a baby chimpanzee inside the remains of a huge stuffed gorilla and starts a relationship with one of his rapists. Marcello Mastroianni as a lonely old man and James Coco as a decadent wax museum owner also move in and out of the story. Whilst the images of the characters with the beached giant gorilla (which presumably Ferreri salvaged from Dino De Laurentis’ 1976 remake of King Kong) shot against the New York skyline are haunting and there are individual moments of surreal humour throughout the film, the absence of much in the way of narrative, characterological or dramatic development will make Ferreri’s film a trial for those other than students of the era or of the director’s work in particular.
BH @ cinephilia.net.au
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Synopsis:
The Italians continue their penchant for gang-directed features in this sexploitation comedy. Part one is entitled “Cocaine On Sunday” in which a husband (Nino Manfredi) and wife (Annamaria Ferrero) start snorting the stuff after the friend who owned the bottle is arrested. In part two, Ugo Tognazzi plays a professor who feels he is becoming too much like his elderly maiden aunts. In the final episode, a businesswoman agrees to meet a street musician, but he is frustrated when she is delayed by her vocational priorities. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie GuideRead More »

A sophisticated Italian beauty (Carroll Baker) is unable to pick between the three men she is admittedly in love with. As a result Gianni (Gastone Moschin), Gaetano (Renato Salvatori), and Mike (Michel Le Royer) are invited to a lush villa in the Adriatic coastal city of Dubrovnik to participate in a small contest. There day after day Margherita will toy with the men’s sexual fantasies until they finally realize that no one is expected to win.Read More »

Plot Synopsis from allmovie.com by Eleanor Mannikka

This sometimes confusing erotic drama about the incestuous relationship of a mother and daughter is based on the autobiography of Italian theater actress Piera Degli Esposti though it focuses more on her mother Eugenia (Hanna Schygulla). The liberated Eugenia and her spaced-out, husband (Marcello Mastroianni) — a professor — live in a small provincial Italian town, where Eugenia is noticed as she zooms around on her bicycle and chats up strangers at the train station. While still no more than a grown child, Piera — in tight dresses — goes with her mother for a threesome when she engages in sexual relations with other men and subsequently suffers both from poor health and the lack of a normal home. The shadow of the future already clouds the household when Eugenia is committed again and again to the psychiatric clinic. By the time Piera has become an adult, both of her parents are in separate mental hospitals — and both (even the father) are still sexually eccentric, to say the least. (Hanna Schygulla) won the “Best Actress” award at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of Eugenia.Read More »

PLOT SYNOPSIS:
From the comedy “Cabin 27”, by Anton Germano Rossi.
One Sunday at the beach of Ostia of cavalier Peppe Passaguai with his wife and three children.
A machine of Roman comicality that has its ascendency in the repertory of dialectal theater, of variety show, and in the humor of the Weekly Travaso of the ’30s, enriched by more cinematic gags and costume notations on the small bourgeoisie. Especially in the first half, there is no lack of good gags and colorful caricatures.
(Morandini)Read More »

Synopsis
This effective drama about crisis and change in an unorthodox family is directed by Franco Brusati, best known for his earlier Bread and Chocolate. Marta (Hella Petri) lives in a large country estate after retiring from her career as an opera singer. She is not alone. Two women live with her, Claudia (Eleonora Giorgi) and Anna (Mariangela Melato), of uncertain familial ties, though perhaps nieces. Claudia and Anna are established in a lesbian affair and both depend on Marta like daughters would depend on a mother. Marta’s brother Nicky (Erland Josephson) and his lover Picchio (David Pontremoli) arrive one day because Marta wants to take the two couples for a brief trip to Venice. Circumstances conspire to change those plans as one crisis after another, as well as a tragedy, make Claudia, Anna, and Nicky rethink their dependent behavior.
Eleanor Mannikka, RoviRead More »