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La stanza del figlio ( Son's room ) – Nanni Moretti
I had high hopes for this movie, it won Cannes in 2001 and certain critics seemed to be very fond of it. it's about a regular family ( the father is a psychiatrist ) with 2 kids, one of who ( the boy ) dies in a scuba diving accident. It seemed to me that unlike Leigh , who seems to be really familiar with the subject of his films , that Moretti is really not familiar with death but is only trying to imagine what it must feel like, and does a pretty weak job at it. The braking point of the movie ( the boys death ) was done very poorly in my opinion, without actually showing how the boy died, he jumps through the initial shock of the news very quickly and also, in my personal experience, the way the characters reacted to the boys death is simply not the way real life people react when they lose a child and brother, very bleak reactions from all of them, it was as if they had lost an acquaintance, not their son/brother. After that, it was as if he was trying to compensate for their weak reactions , the characters start to behave very erratic which simply didn't seem believable at this point. I'm sure that in the hands of a much better artist/director, this movie could have been better. Or maybe my standards were raised too high by seeing two brilliant Leigh films two nights in a row. Rent it and judge for yourself.
3.5/5
I had high hopes for this movie, it won Cannes in 2001 and certain critics seemed to be very fond of it. it's about a regular family ( the father is a psychiatrist ) with 2 kids, one of who ( the boy ) dies in a scuba diving accident. It seemed to me that unlike Leigh , who seems to be really familiar with the subject of his films , that Moretti is really not familiar with death but is only trying to imagine what it must feel like, and does a pretty weak job at it. The braking point of the movie ( the boys death ) was done very poorly in my opinion, without actually showing how the boy died, he jumps through the initial shock of the news very quickly and also, in my personal experience, the way the characters reacted to the boys death is simply not the way real life people react when they lose a child and brother, very bleak reactions from all of them, it was as if they had lost an acquaintance, not their son/brother. After that, it was as if he was trying to compensate for their weak reactions , the characters start to behave very erratic which simply didn't seem believable at this point. I'm sure that in the hands of a much better artist/director, this movie could have been better. Or maybe my standards were raised too high by seeing two brilliant Leigh films two nights in a row. Rent it and judge for yourself.
3.5/5