The Winston-Salem Cinema Society |
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3 PM, August 18, 2002 |
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THE SON'S ROOM (LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO) Director: Nanni Moretti (Italy, 2001) 99 min.; Rated R THE SON'S ROOM is heartbreaking and not. Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, it is a measured, decorous film that manages to be quietly moving because it touches on something real. Nanni Moretti, known in Italy for puckish investigations of modern life that have led to comparisons to Woody Allen, not only directed but also co-wrote, co-produced and stars. Moretti plays Giovanni, a psychiatrist in the small Italian town of Ancona. He's a contented paterfamilias, thoroughly involved with his wife, Paola, and their two teenage children, daughter Irene and son Andrea. Some of Giovanni's patients have amusing, exasperating problems and the most boring dreams, while others, like a man who fears he will turn into a child-molesting monster, have quite serious dilemmas. To them all, Giovanni gives a variant of the calming advice that will come back to haunt him: "We can't control our lives completely. We do what we can. Just take a more relaxed approach to life and the world." But when tragedy hits Giovanni, it turns out that it lays waste to everything it touches. The family finds itself in emotional free-fall, in a situation without rules or guidance, where Giovanni can't begin to take his own good advice and his wife and daughter find the pain so deep they have to retreat into themselves if they are to survive at all. In the end, a chance event raises the question of whether it is possible for life to reassert and rekindle itself, for life to, in effect, rescue life. It's here that the virtues of Moretti's determination not to overstate or overdo things are most evident. Source:(http://www.calendarlive.com/top/ 1,1419,L-LATimes-Movies-X!ArticleDetail-50621,00.html) Reviews and Links: Kenneth Turan, LA Times http://www.calendarlive.com/top/ 1,1419,L-LATimes-Movies-X!ArticleDetail-50621,00.html Andrew Sarris, New York Observer http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=5445 Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2002/02/08/ sons_room/index.html?CP=IMD&DN=110 Official site: http://www.bacfilms.com/chambre/ |
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The Winston-Salem Cinema Society, Inc. | P.O. Box 15340 | Winston-Salem, NC | 27113-0340 | (336) 722-8269 A Non-Profit Organization
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