9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Original and misinterpreted, December 25, 2002
This review is from: The Icicle Thief [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This offbeat Italian comedy uses the familiar black and white/color dichotomy to indicate different worlds, a technique always in danger of being overdone. Last time I saw it was in Hollywood's Pleasantville (1998) where it was so cloying it annoyed; the first time magically in The Wizard of Oz (1939). It was even done (to good effect) in Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993). Here the "film" is in black and white (as it's being shown on TV) and the commercials are in color. The characters bizarrely go from one "world" to the other while somewhere in between is the "real" world of TV viewers. Because the world of TV commercials is the more fantastic, I think the technique works well here.
Maurizio Nichetti, who might (and might not) remind you of Roberto Benigni, stars as Anotonio Piermattei, the icicle thief, the protagonist of the movie within a movie, which is a Bicycle Thief-like tragic film that the TV people manage to mangle into a TV-like romantic comedy. (If you're wondering how one can be an icicle thief, keep wondering. I'll never tell.) Nichetti also plays the auteur of the film being shown on TV who is invited to be interviewed but never gets to speak partly because the film critic who is to do the interview thinks they are viewing a different film.
The title notwithstanding, this is not a satire or a "spoof" of Vittorio De Sica's internationally acclaimed The Bicycle Thief (1948), although De Sica himself might be seen as being lightly satirized. Nichetti's The Icicle Thief is more like an identification as it attempts to stand with the art film solidly against commercialism. However any similarity between the film within a film here and De Sica's masterpiece is sycophantic. This is not to say that The Icicle Thief does not have its moments and its charm. It does.
Caterina Sylos Labini who plays Maria, Antonio Piermattei's singing wife, is charming as the archetypical Italian femme fatale, a dark, lusty, earthy woman who can cry and laugh at the drop of a hat. She is contrasted with Heidi Komarck, a colorized blonde model in a butch haircut who does TV commercials. Komarck looks like a member of the Swedish ski team draped in a lingerie outfit that leaves little to the imagination while speaking only American English. My favorite part of the film was the cute shtick with Maria's happy one-year-old daughter who crawls continually into mischief (grabbing a knife by the blade, putting an electric wire in her mouth, etc.) but somehow never has to shed a tear.
That this is a satire and spoof of TV (and not De Sica's Bicycle Thief or old-time neo-realism itself) is immediately apparent when the TV film critic has to ask the name of the film he is critiquing. On TV the only things that really matter are the commercials. So, to the extent that a "Big Big" candy bar jingle and a laundry detergent superhero triumph over a black and white neo-realistic film, we can see that triumph as a satire of television and its middle-brow audience.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly hilarious, and lots of fun, August 13, 2000
This review is from: The Icicle Thief [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This movie is terribly charming (especially after seeing "The Bicycle Thieves") and very funny. The official review sadly gives away too much of this movie. I saw this film in a college class with no summations beforehand, and was really blown away. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys quirky little stories within stories, paying close attention to the story line and typical Italian humor.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cleverest film I've seen, November 9, 2000
This review is from: The Icicle Thief [VHS] (VHS Tape)
While on the face of it a commedy, and in fact tremendously funny, the film is much more about how our memories merge events just because they were coincident. As a result, the independent lives of the viewers, the director who is being interviewed, the commercials, and the old film, all become intwined, with each character's drivers continuing to motivate them even in the new environment. This changes the direction of each of the narratives to great comic effect. No threads are left untied, each element of the film works on its own, and the mix is fantastically funny. If we could give this film 10 stars I happily would!
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