Customer Reviews

Giovanna's Father ( Il papà di Giovanna ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Il papà di Giovanna" ("Giovanna's Father") chronicles the life of an Italian family living in Bologna (where co-writer and director Pupi Avati was born) just before and after WWII. The film stars Silvio Orlando as a high school teacher Michele Casali, whose quiet life changes suddenly when his only daughter is involved in a scandal. Francesca Neri ("Live Flash" "Collateral Damage") plays Delia, Michele's loving but somewhat remote wife.

In 1938, a respected Bologna high school teacher Michele, living with his beautiful wife and a sweet but painfully shy and sensitive daughter 17-year-old Giovanna (Alba Rohrwacher), discovers that something is wrong with the latter after her friend's birthday party. Several days later the concerned father finds on her clothes some brown stains that look like blood.

The strength of the melodramatic drama lies not in the mystery or courtroom drama (which is not the center of the story), but in the pathos behind the flawed but likable characters trying to survive while struggling with the conflicts within themselves. The story is told against the backdrop of the political unrest in Italy, with Mussolini's fascist regime, but the political events and the war are all described from the ordinary citizen's viewpoints.

The pace often feels rushed, and some of the supporting characters (especially Michele's next-door neighbor and best friend Sergio, who plays an important role in the latter half of the film) need more space to breathe. The film becomes episodic in the second half though its story remains engaging with the atmospheric cinematography and the realistic characters played by the gifted actors.