Cinema Retro's David Savage reports from New York's Tribeca Film Festival on a new film from Italy.
Quiet Chaos (Italy)
Contrary to Quentin Tarantino's much publicized recent
pronouncement that 'Italian cinema is dead' -- a sentiment echoed even inside
the Italian film industry by critics who see its heyday in the once-promising
1950s and '60s -- I believe it's in a period of intense social dissection. Like
films of recent years, Caterina va in città (2003), Volevo solo
dormirle addosso (2004), Ricordati di me (2003), and others, Quiet
Caos, a new film starring Nanni Moretti and directed by Antonello Grimaldi,
reflects a crisis the country is facing on all levels: economic, political,
social and spiritual. (See last December's New York Times front-page
essay by Ian Fisher: In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of
Disappointment at nytimes.com)
Based on the bestselling novel by Sandro Veronesi (Caos
Calmo), Quiet Chaos examines what happens to a successful executive
when he loses his wife to a tragic accident. One day, after saving the life of
two women from drowning in the ocean, he arrives home only to discover his wife
has suddenly died in a fall. Unable to feel the grief from his wife's death, he
takes a leave from his office life to sit outside his 10-year-old daughter's
school every day, from dropping her off in the morning to taking her home after
school. As he waits for the grief over his wife to kick in, he spends his days
sitting in his car, wandering the park and having coffee at a nearby café. His
boss, fellow colleagues and relatives all come to console him but end up
confiding their own pain and difficulties: office politics and backstabbing,
naked ambition, cheating hearts and other ailments. Throughout it all, Pietro
remains calm and becomes something of a guru to those who seek him out for his
strange calm. Gradually, Pietro finds meaning in being a father and realizes
something that seems to echo the national conscience: In this age of
accelerating greed, venality and careerism, spontaneous acts of kindness and
human decency are the most radical acts of all.-David Savage