I'll warn you now Andrei Kravchuk's 2005 movie The Italian is not an easy watch.
It tells the story of Vanya, an orphan soon to be illegally adopted
by an Italian couple. After the initial meeting goes well Vanya has
just two weeks to find his own mother whilst the paperwork is being
put into place.
And so the narrative begins, although a little late. And it doesn't
seem to want to catch up either. It plods along at an incredibly slow
pace and doesn't really reward the viewer any pleasure whatsoever. By
the end of the movie I didn't feel anything for the central character
and whilst it is an uplifting ending I just felt abused. Sure there
are some beautiful shots, at one point early in the movie when their
car runs out of petrol the Italian father proclaims "look…the real
Russia". We see a POV shot of the wide expanse of desolate frosty
Russian desert, interrupted immediately by a troop of orphans coming
to help. The moment is made ever more powerful through the strange
but chilling strings soundtrack, something that goes drastically
downhill as the film progresses.
Its performances are fine although the information-laden giveaway
lines are a little to the acquired taste. At the beginning of the
movie the scriptwriter has the unfortunate pleasure of having his
credit placed immediately after the Italians confide in each other
"ohhh it's colder here than in Italy, isn't it?"
This Dickensian set-up isn't limited to the down beat inner city/slum
settings either. The central bad guys are overseers Madam and
henchman Nikolai. Neither of which are particularly nasty or scary.
They incompetently plod along in unison with everything else.
Marred by predictability and lack of speed this film offers very
little except wonderful cinematography and settings, which in itself
is enough to go and see it, just don't expect to be moved.
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