Famous+Italian+films+of+the+Nineties

After having tasted a wonderful Italian dinner thanks to our Italian recipes, why don't you conclude the evening watching a film? As our second topic we decided to let you know about some famous Italian films of the Nineties. Each of us wrote about a film she likes. Here they are, listed in chronological order: Mediterraneo (1991) edited by Silvia, Viaggi di Nozze (1995) edited by Lara, Và dove ti porta il cuore (1996) edited by Maria, Il ciclone (1996) edited by Chiara and La vita è bella (1997) edited by Paola. A famous representative of the Italian comedy of the 90s is surely Leonardo Pieraccioni. One of his most famous films is **Il Ciclone**, 1996, which obtained a great success in the season 1996-97. The major actors who play in this film are Leonardo Pieraccioni, Lorena Forteza, Barbara Enrichi, Massimo Ceccherini, Natalia Estrada and Alessandro Haber. In this film the arrival of a group of Spanish flamenco dancers and of their manager upsets the quiet life of a Tuscan village and creates confusion paricularly in the family of Levante, who falls in love with one of these charming dancer and gives rise to a series of funny events. It is a pleasant, nice comedy, not vulgar, which finds one of its major strong points in the performances of the actors, a team working well together. In December 1997 **La vita è bella** was released in Italian cinemas. It is the story of an Italian Jew sent to a concentration camp with his son, his uncle and his wife, who is not Jew, but voluntarily follows them. Roberto Benigni broaches the subject of the Second World War and in particular of the Jewish situation in those years. Benigni’s performance is brilliant, especially in the relationship with his son, even if their idea of the game could seem unrealistic. Perhaps Benigni’s performance was influenced by his father’s experience, indeed his father was prisoner in the Nazi camp of Bergen Belsen. In 1998 the film took by the Juries of the Academy Awards and of the Cannes Film Festival. La vita è bella won three Academy Awards: Best Actor (Benigni), Best Foreign Language Film and Best Music (Nicola Piovani), and the Grand Prize of the Jury in Cannes.
 * Mediterraneo** is a film by Salvatores. It is set in 1941 in a island of the Aegean sea, Syrna. It is the story of a group of Italian soldiers that can not communicate with Italy because of the radio breakdown. After three years of isolation, an Italian plane land on the Syrna and the soldiers are told war is over. They could go home but they are unwilling. Indeed, in the island they have found peace and affectation. Everybody but one, which has fallen in love with a prostitute, came back to Italy. After a lot of years, one of the soldiers has a journey in Syrna but discovers the Island is now spoil by tourism. So, it is no more the place of peace in which he have lived for three years. The movie, which won the Academy Award as best foreign film in 1992, deals with two themes. The first is that of escape from an obvious reality and the second is that of the journey inside consciousness. Both actions need isolation and solitude that are difficult to find in our society.
 * Viaggi di nozze** is a comedy constructed upon three parallel plots. The film is about three couples that have just married and about their honeymoon, during which the impossibility of communicating becomes clear. The three episodes have in common not only the marriage and the couple life, but also, at a further level, the family and the Italian society. In fact, each of these three couples represents a piece of the Italian society: there is the shy man that is suffocated by the selfishness and the insensibility of the family, then there is the cold calculating doctor, and the well-off young man that lacks of real values which he can cling to. In this film, Carlo Verdone plays three male roles very different one from each other, showing us his great abilities both as the main actor and as the director.
 * Và dove di porta il cuore** is about the homonym bestseller by Susanna Tamaro,the plot line is a little bit complicated. Olga, an old woman well-healed that had a life really difficult and full of family dramas, lives alone in a big mansion nearby Trieste and decided to remember her life writing it in a diary. She did an examination of conscience upon the events that distress her life. Grown into the wellbeing, she had a difficult relationship with her parents, without communication. She got married with a man, Augusto, that she didn't love and for this reason she began to have problem during the night with frequent nightmares. So she went for a period in a quiet place where she met Ernesto, the doctor she fell in love with. She began an adulterous relationship with this man, that went on also when she came back home. From this relation would born Ilaria, that lived in an unhappy house, with an absent father and a shattered mother that lost his lover, Ernesto, in a car accident. Later also Augusto passes away and during a dispute with her daughter, Olga said the truth to Ilaria, that would die the same day in a car accident. Olga, shattered, could only take care of her granddaughter, Marta, that was a baby when her mother dead. Marta would know the truth, a lot of years later, when also her grandmother would die. In fact, Olga leaved her diary to Marta in order to let her know the story of her family.