La Collezione invisibile (2002): ** out of ****
Written and directed by Gianfranco Isernia. Starring Felice Andreasi, Ana
Valeria Dini and Marisa Mantovani.
by Andy Keast
"La Collezione invisibile" is too cartoonish to be taken seriously as a
thriller, and at times too full of doom to be taken lightly even as a dark
comedy. First-time writer-director Gianfranco Isernia has all the confidence
that a writer needs, none that a director does.
Ottavio (Felice Andreasi -who most Americans will know from "Pane e tulipani")
is the landlord of a Roman apartment building. His neighbors have been written
into the screenplay for their quirkiness and either their sexual or
intellectual diversity. An artist tenant works at forging copies of Ottavio's
titular "collection (architectural concept drawings by an artist of the Dutch
Renaissance)," and spends his time spying on the old man. Ottavio unwisely
boasts of his collection to Mario, a waiter who works below the units. His
niece Clara (Argentinean-Italian actress Ana Valeria Dini) comes to visit, and
may or may not be in on a plot to steal the priceless drawings. There's also
Velia, who seems to have wondered in from an Almodóvar movie.
The film is good at establishing apartment life in a close-knit Roman
neighborhood, and the characterizations are all convincing. When I think back
on the plot and the logic of the heist, it holds water. The flaw of the movie
is that Isernia's direction throws the tone all over the place. He can't
decide whether he's making a suspense film, a morality play or a European
farce. It's kind of a shame, because there are some decent scenes, such as the
retrieval of a shattered porcelain cup. Other scenes involving Ottavio are
underscored by Herrmannesque music and project a real urgency. But then
they're immediately followed by goofy improv with Velia, a distracting romance
between Mario and Clara, and the antics of not-so-bright policemen.
Since the arrival of Miramax International and the success of such "cute"
Italian films as Tornatore's "Nuovo cinema Paradiso" and Benigni's "La vita č
bella," there has been a bizarre output from the Italian film industry in
general -the treatment of their own country as a theme park, where magic is
possible, where accordion music is always heard in the background, roses and
*l'amore* always seen in the foreground, et cetera. This is also evident in
countless American romantic comedies, most recently "Under the Tuscan Sun,"
where the American is smitten with an enchanting fairytale culture.
I digress. A friend of mine has a fairly effective "test" of sorts for most
foreign movies of this kind: If the film had been made in the United States,
with an identical tone and pacing, would an American audience care? By that
rationale, should one suppose any Italians care about this film? Think about
it.
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37465 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1268284 X-RT-TitleID: 10003951 X-RT-AuthorID: 9883 X-RT-RatingText: 2/4
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews