
guisreis
Joined Mar 2002
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A great political film (mostly a political thriller) set in the Vatican. With a deep striking performance by Ralph Fiennes and very good characters, perfect art direction and beautiful cinematography, there is a quite good story depicting ideological and power struggles and not commendable human stories inside the Catholic Church. The rivalries were more than personal and strongly motivated not only for vanity and wish of power but also by a strong dissent on what are faith and the good, and how the Church shall be. The last part of the movie goes straight in that clash, carefully developped throughout the film. As I believe, God is there in the script, and the very ending is very appropriate for the film core issue. I could not expect that I would ever watch a production about a conclave at least as good as the first episode of TV series The Borgias, but I deffinitely did ot, in an immersive, amusing, deep and beautiful feature movie!
Initially it seemed to be a dystopic future with heavily infected air (where there are cyborgs and, as Wiipedia explains because I did not understand those two women with cat ears, android catgirls, or neko-girls, created as sex-dolls but who eventually became criminals beyond originlly intended programming) where the police is terribly violent, actually a development from nowadays police, with the very same approach, being boosted in its militaristic aggression against the population and disrespect for the law and human rights: they started to use huge armed tanks inside town and wanted to introduze nuclear weapons in crime fighting. Well, that actually appears in the film, but the those policemen are portrayed in a sympathetic and supposedly funny way, as if it were just a matter of being hard-boiled and commited to the duty. Indeed, any criticism vanishes completely a little after the introduction of character Leona, as she was the example of good behaviour and good intention, and she developped anaffectionate bond with those very tanks and also the idea that the police is in a war and all strength and financing is necessary to fight crime (sadistic torture included). Dialogues and situations are generally sillly, or cheesy, or reactionary. Therefore, the story is not only bad but also increasingly hateful. There is a good animation work, and I liked the mushroon-like architecture, but the scrript compromises he outcome. There are stupid moments which seem to be created by young teenagers, such as those ridiculous inflating weapons the criminals used against the police.
This is a very interesting adaptation of Pinocchio, allegedly truer to original source than Disney or Del Toro's wonderful movies. It has a darker but also charming (and humorous) tone, reminding older films, as there is much less CGI than generally in current fantasy movies (CGI also exists, particularly in the donkey and whale parts of the story, and is well done, but is not exaggerated) and makeup is much more important (as it were in the 1990s, 1980s and 1970s). There are colourful characters (Mangiafuoco, the fox and the cat, the snail, the teacher, and so forth...), and, much more than Pinocchio himself, I loved Benigni's portrayal of Geppetto. The representation of an impoverished carpenter turned to father of a special and naive boy was great. Poverty is indeed a question that is recurrent in the script: boys steal to eat, and even the mischievous villains are actually motivated by starving. The numerous antropomorphic characters are mostly human-like but with some remarkable traits provided by the skilled makeup work, which is excellent in the whole production. Some parts of the story are faster and simpler than I was accustomed in other versions, while others are extended. Also, characters had a very different level of importance: the fairy, played by Marine Vacth, the "Lolita" Isabelle from François Ozon's Young and Beautiful, has a core role in a great part of the story here, while the talking cricket is quite minor. Additionally, there are some scenes which are much more disturbing than any other version I had watched, reminding me the awesome fairy tale movie by the same filmmaker, Matteo Garrone: Tale of Tales. To resume, this is an underrated Italian fantasy movie, a good and authentic depiction of the classic story which certainly worth watching.