17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No action, yet you move along, April 20, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Caro Diario [VHS] (VHS Tape)
"Caro Diario" is a film that masquerades as Nanni Moretti's "imaginary movie" - the kind that each of us makes in his head. Long, meditative panning shots of modern Roman architecture, wandering through sprawling suburbs on a Vespa, amusing treks to islands to find solitude: the three distinct parts of the film are underscored by Moretti's deep sense of human loneliness, his quirkiness, and his need to connect with others. The people he encounters are either too absorbed with their own lives, too suspicious or too clueless to acknowledge that, yes, life can be baffling and that there is a life of the mind. Moretti just happens to summon his thoughts more readily.
That is what makes the film so funny and telling. In one scene, he rides through one of Rome's more modern, drab housing developments. He muses, is the place really as bad as people make it out to be? At a dead-end street he encounters a lone stranger and cries out, "Spinaceto's not as bad as I thought it would be!" The man agrees wholeheartedly, and they bid each other goodbye. Just a small sign - just a check on one's presumptions. In another scene, Moretti stops next to the driver of a slick sports car and pours out his thoughts before the light changes. The driver is polite, but in a hurry. Moretti has captured, without grand gestures or syrupy tricks, some of the essence of humanity.
Without conventional dialogue (most of the film is narrated by Moretti), the music has to fill in the mood and set the tone, and it does so beautifully, drawing from varied sources. This would be one soundtrack that defied categorization.
Moretti comes across as an eccentric - a sort of Italian Woody Allen - and the third act of "Caro Diario" shows him searching for a cure to a mysterious itch. This sequence drags just a bit, but it does play up the silliness of the European medical system (and we're not far behind). You are relieved at the end, when the diagnosis, although serious, is not fatal, and Moretti ends the film on a lighthearted but touching note.
As a "foreign film" it has less action than even the average Hollywood sleeper, but it's a great ride.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This movie is simply great and Moretti is simply a genius, April 25, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Caro Diario [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The thing that grabs me about this movie is that Nanni Moretti makes it look so simple to make a great film (its not, for sure) the plot is hilarious wheather Nanni is travelling between the Italian islands looking for a quite place to concentrate on his work or going from one dermatologist to another to find a cure for an itch. What makes this movie so great is that even when the plot stalls a little (not very often) you still have beutifull scences and great soundtrack to compensate for it. As far as I am concerned this movie is PERFECT.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magical, February 13, 2001
This review is from: Caro Diario [VHS] (VHS Tape)
When I watched this movie for the second time a few days ago, having first seen it two years ago, I remembered how I had instantly fallen in love with it the first time that I saw it. After I first saw the film, I couldn't remember the name of it but fortuneately an Italian friend reminded me of it a few weeks ago. This film's soundtrack is unforgetable and the cinematopgraphy is outstanding. His personal "Odyseey" through the Italian islands and his funny, yet poignant, drive through Rome and the countryside on his Vespa come to life through Moretti. Thid film whisks away the viewer on a deeply poignant and comic personal journey. I love the part when he joins in the dancing and then sways from side to side on his Vespa while listening to Khaled's Didi. By the way, one reviewer asked about the music from the dance scene- the name of the song is "Visa para un Sueno" by Dominican superstar Juan Luis Guerra. It is available on his '440' album. Juan Luis Guerra is one of my favorite musical artists, along with Khaled. Any film that has their songs back to back in a soundtrack (something I didn't think possible!)was clearly tailor made for me, but everyone can relate to this film and find meaning in it. The piano interlude and scenery during his journey to the slain Italian director's momument is haunting. Highly recommended.
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