Open Roads: New Italian Cinema At Lincoln Center 2021

[Chris Knipp]

THE MAFIA IS NO LONGER WHAT IT USED TO BE/LA MAFIA NON È PIÙ QUELLA DI UNA VOLTA (Franco Maresco 2019)

Satire of Italy's persistent loyalty to Cosa Nostra is piquant and subtle perhaps for locals, but reads as repetitious for anyone else. And from what I'm told, he's essentially replaying his previous film Bellusconi and trying to make it seem different. Even the irony of the title may be lost on us. Won the Jury Prize however at Venice.

[Chris Knipp]

PADRENOSTRO (Claudio Noce 2020)

Handsome and touching boy's POV film about Years of Lead terror turns into a beautiful mess.

[Chris Knipp]

PUNTA SACRA (Francesca Mazzoleni 2020)

A lyrical, sympathetic documentary view of a makeshift Ostia community, where the sea meets the Tiber river and where some 500 families live, is emotionally engaging, but lacks certain practical details.

[Chris Knipp]

ASSANDIRA (Salvatore Mereu 2020)

A bonfire of the agri-vanities (damning agriturismo) becomes a police procedural, set in Sardinia, the region of director Mereu's work. Some shortcomings of the action may be balanced by the gravitas - in the lead role - of Gavino Ledda, author of Padre Padrone in his first time as an actor.

[Chris Knipp]

UNA PROMESSA (Gianlucca, Massimiliano De Serio 2020)

Neorealist father and son slasher revenge drama is a mashup of genres that's simply unacceptable, despite the filmmakers' solid documentary experience and sociological aims. Sets out as an exposure of the brutalities of the slave-labor caporalato farms that exploit excommunitari immigrants, but has a fantasy-surreal-magic realist bent from the start, then turns to horror. Such a hybrid was new to me.

[Chris Knipp]

FOR LUCIO/PER LUCIO (Pietro Marcello 2021)

Heavy in its use of Marcello's signature use of complexly edited archival footage, light on the investigative journalism, this is a pleasant portrait of Lucio Dalla, the late singer-songwriter who was active till he died of a heart attack the morning after a concert in 2012, a representative and admired Italian cultural figure. Only two talking heads though.