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| Downward Dog! |
Now, on to the subject of this week's film The Salt of Life or, in Italian, Gianni e Le Donne. The director Gianni di Gregorio, also played the hero - a character he had introduced in his last film, Mid-August Lunch. I'm generally a bit wary of film follow-ups, they often don't seem as good as the original, and by the time you get to Rocky VI it just doesn't do it for me. Watching this film, I found myself drawing comparisons with its predecessor, which probably means that my attention was wandering. It was a well made film that was very funny in parts, although I didn't find it as funny as Mid-August Lunch, I wonder if I would feel the same if I had seen the two films the other way around?
Our feedback forms gave this one an average rating of 72%. The most frequent rating was B (Very Good).
The premise of the film was interesting – here is a verbatim transcript of an interview with the director:
“I'd noticed for some time that women, at a certain age, no longer look at you. And at first this frightened me, naturally enough. I thought of the film as a way of exorcising this fear. This development, that comes along at a certain stage. I don't know whether the exorcism will work Everything will probably remain just as it was before. But it was my reaction to this discovery. Many women have said this to me, that they saw themselves in the film. I was very pleased to hear this, but men certainly feel the same thing too. And I have to say that all my friends of the same age are terrorised by this problem. Dying their hair, buying powerful motorbikes. And I had the chance to make a film to make light of this tragedy! But I have to say all my friends of the same age are... Men say less about it. Women are more honest and talk about it more. But men feel this fear as well. I tried to show it, for example, in the scene where I go to a bar with a friend. When he talks to the young woman behind the bar... She's not even looking at him. It's very autobiographical”So there you have it. My wife asked me if I felt the same. Well I have noticed that I'm invisible to the younger generation. They, on the other hand, are sometimes all too visible.
The director went on to say:
"The girl who plays the daughter is really my daughter. The little black dog is my dog. There are a lot of things from my life in there. My daughter didn't want to do it because she's very shy. But as she's had a boyfriend for four years who lives at my house. And every morning she tells me she must leave him. Every morning for four years. I said to her just do the same thing that you do every day, so she did.”So making films is easy then? Here's an interesting extract from Philip French's review:
“Three years ago, after a lifetime of acting in the theatre and working as an assistant director and screenwriter in the cinema, the 60-year-old Gianni Di Gregorio won major national and international fame as co-author of Matteo Garrone's expansive Italian crime movie Gomorrah, a complex exposé of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia. He immediately followed this up with an even greater personal success as the writer, director and star of the low-budget, multi-prizewinning Mid-August Lunch. In that gem-like chamber comedy he played a retired middle-aged bachelor caring for his ancient mother in the bustling central Roman district of Trastevere and being persuaded to take care of three other old women over a bank holiday weekend. His new film, The Salt of Life, is quite as good. It's also set in Di Gregorio's native Trastevere, and once more he plays a dutiful middle-aged son called Gianni with the outrageous nonagenarian Valeria De Franciscis Bendoni as his poker-playing, Krug-swilling mother.” (For the full review, see the link below)
Thanks to one of the feedback forms, I now know what a “Downward Dog” is. (See the picture). Other comments from feedback forms:
| A | €10 for a pineapple and a pound of cherries! |
| A | Very entertaining! |
| A | Bitter-sweet and full of irony. I really enjoyed it. Lovely cinematography |
| A | A lovely film beautifully illustrating life's humdrum ways. A very interesting selection of films throughout the year. Thank you. |
| B | |
| B | |
| B | Gentle, charming, poignant |
| B | “Enjoyable”? I can't describe but certainly thought provoking. |
| B | I enjoyed the film; I saw the one previously with the same characters, thought it was very sad. Life passing by. But I was really looking forward to Quattro Volte & I'm very disappointed not to have seen it. I think I would have liked to have been told it wasn't going to be shown. |
| B | A continuation of the other one. Very similar. Amusing. |
| B | |
| B | |
| B | A pleasure to watch – the unreconstructed! |
| C | Quick scene moves made it crisp and amusing film. Philosophical too. |
| C | |
| C | Nice gentle comedy to finish the season. |
| C | Stereotypical middle-age male fantasy! Not as original as “Mid-August Lunch”. |
| C | Jolly. A representative of millions of older men. |
| C | Gentle comedy. Wouldn't work in the UK, I suspect – all that leering... |
| C | |
| D | Not even a happy ending! |
| D | |
| D | GOOD “DOWNWARD DOG” |
On-line reviews:
Philip French, Observer:
Andrew Pulver in The Guardian (4 stars):
IMDB users gave it 5.9 out of 10: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1813327/
Rotten Tomatoes, 52%: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-salt-of-life/
I thought the film highlighted feelings about the aging process and the feeling of becoming invisible very poignantly, but with a good level of humour. It's also so refreshing to see older women on screen in interesting roles.
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