A fitting conclusion to Rossellini’s neorealist War Trilogy that shifts away from a recent past-tense focus on the war itself and instead depicts the immediate present-tense aftermath of the war, both physically in terms ofContinue reading
Category: Italian Cinema
Paisan (Roberto Rossellini, 1946)
Rossellini’s follow-up to his neorealist masterpiece Rome Open City works much of the same terrain while also extending and elaborating his aesthetic preoccupations on a much grander narrative scale. While the previous film was firmlyContinue reading
Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)
The polarizing result of the collaboration between French New Wave pioneer Resnais and famed “New Novelist” Alain Robbe-Grillet, this is a film that challenges at every turn and is guaranteed to thrill some with itsContinue reading
The Damned (Luchino Visconti, 1969)
A far cry from his neorealist roots, Visconti goes for broke in this extraordinary epic of high camp. History is thrown beneath the steady flow of Freudian pathology, sexual perversity, soap opera theatrics, and SirkianContinue reading
The Inglorious Bastards (Enzo G. Castellari, 1978)
It’s not not hard to see what Quentin Tarantino loves so much about this Italian-made Dirty Dozen knock-off about a bunch of “deserters, cutthoats, and thieves” who get stuck on a suicide mission while tryingContinue reading
Crime Busters (Enzo Barboni, 1977)
The funniest thing about Crime Busters, the 10th of the 17 films in which Italian actors Terence Hill and Bud Spencer appeared as a comedy duo, is the bizarro world created by a fully EuropeanContinue reading
Mafioso (Alberto Lattuada, 1962)
From perennially eclectic director Alberto Lattuada we get this nightmarishly funny comedy of manners about a very respectable Milanese auto factory foreman who takes his very blonde wife and even blonder young daughters back toContinue reading