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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classily made, untypically Italian gem, July 2, 2008
This review is from: The Consequences of Love ( Le Conseguenze dell'amore ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ] (DVD)
Director Paolo Sorrentino has made the type of film we don't normally associate with Italy, a film where the characters are, for the most part, a study in icy cool and repressed emotions. This mood suits the sterile, upmarket, Swiss setting, where a middle-aged business man, depressed and uncommunicative to all around him, lives in an expensive hotel, in a boredom only relieved by his dispassionate studying of his fellow-guests and a certain very attractive young waitress at the hotel. I found the film mostly very intriguing. Toni Servillo plays the lead role brilliantly, the photography and direction are first-class and there is an astonishingly adroit use of music and sound-effects throughout the film. The thriller aspect to the story works well, although I think the director aims more for mood and revelations into human nature than a taut, suspenseful plot. In summary, the film's technical accomplishment compensates for any implausibilities in the plot and it is certainly a film worth seeing.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Italy at its best, August 19, 2011
THe consequences of love presents a striking portrayl of isolation and the desire to reengage life. What better way is there to start over in life other than Love. At all cost. Great Film
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3.0 out of 5 stars
thriller of stalled middle-aged, Swiss Italian style, May 7, 2011
This is a sad film about a man living in a swiss hotel without friends or even family. You witness the way he plods through life, a non-descript normal man who watches everyone. There is an elderly couple next to him in hard circumstances, with whom he gambles and eavesdrops. They are even sadder than he is. There is also an extraordinary young beauty who works in the bar, who watches him and wonders, trying for some contact for unfathomable reasons. She even partially strips for him in the bar. As I live next to Switzerland, I must say that this perfectly reflects the kind of sterile order that we are accustomed to finding there, a kind of frictionless life so long as you have the money to pay for it. Even the man's glib statements fit perfectly with the static nihilism of the place.
The man's means and reason for living are a mystery. Is he rich? Why is he so estranged from his children and ex-wife? More than half-way thorough the movie, the viewer wants these questions answered, though nothing that interesting could possibly come from, or so one thinks. Then an enigmatic woman delivers a suitcase, which the man takes, now armed, to a swiss bank for processing. We begin to see his life is far more complicated than one assumed. He also hosts some nasty thugs while they are 'on a job'.
With a discrepancy in the amounts counted, the man's life suddenly seems open and even dangerous. He engages with the girl, perhaps wooing her, perhaps out of extreme loneliness. As events unfold, and I do not want to play the spoiler with details, things get very complicated indeed, and the unexpected - in behavior and circumstance - overturn all the assumptions the character makes about their lives. It is surprising, frightening, and sad.
REcommended. This is a quality European thriller.
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