Jeannieg Reviews

Wild Blood (2008)

Really not worth watching

[3/10 · 25 August 2008]

I had read the other reviews here, and considered the film worth a viewing, though without high expectations.

I was very disappointed. (However I think the criticism of Bellucci is a little harsh: her character as written and directed was so asinine that it seems unfair to complain that she played 'a sofa' as 'a sofa'!) The cutting to flashback (another comment on IMDb) was about the only feature which was interesting about this film. At least it kept me awake!

For me, an immeasurably better portrayal of fascist 'minor celebrities' and their cocaine habits is to be seen in Bertolucci's Millenovecento. I appreciate that Bertolucci's masterpiece is better remembered for 'the goodies' Gerard Depardieu and Sterling Hayden - but Act II gets to grips with the other aspects of the Mussolini regime, and the excesses of the 'favoured'.

Il Divo (2008)

Beautiful but perhaps incomprehensible in translation

[8/10 · 15 August 2008]

This is a film of two parts - something which a previous comment didn't really make clear - we see the events of Italy during Andreotti's reign in the first half from Andreoti's point of view: then in the second half we see the same events again from (depending on your perspective) either a more dispassionate or a more disparaging observation.

As a bit of cinema it is brilliant (one or two IMO rather silly unslick bits of special FX, just ignore them!) but altogether not to be missed. I doubt that it will translate well, and even for a seasoned appassionato of Italian politics the introduction of characters using (clever) superimposed text was flawed by the overshort screen time which these important notes were allowed.