A mysterious word sparks a deadly contagion that cannot be contained. CONTENT WARNING: Contains generative A.I. and sadness.
Tag Archives: Italian
CAPSULE: FINALLY DAWN (2023)
Finalmente l’alba
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DIRECTED BY: Saverio Costanzo
FEATURING: Rebecca Antonaci, Lily James, Joe Keery, Willem Dafoe
PLOT: After losing track of her sister during a casting call in 1950s Rome, Mimosa ends up spending a long night with a Hollywood actress and her hangers-on.
COMMENTS: Mimosa’s mother appreciated the actors’ performance in The Sacrifice—the black and white film which opens Finally Dawn—but is annoyed that all the movies these days obsess over war tragedies. Mimosa’s striking sister thought the film lovely; though perhaps not quite so lovely as a studio swain finds the sister. And Mimosa herself? She loves movies, and probably doesn’t love the quiet police official she’s engaged to. She joins her sister at Cinecittà the following day for an extras casting call for a new sword and sandal epic; though not selected (Mimosa’s modesty does her no favors with the film crew), she accidentally meets Josephine Esperanto, a star she greatly admires. When she’s hand-picked by the leading lady for a small cameo, so begins Mimosa’s long night of drinks, drugs, and rumors of a tiger escaped in the Eternal City.
Finally Dawn is slick, with the atmosphere of a period-period-epic. But the general malaise of the grand actors confounds Mimosa, and her lack of fluency in English does her no favors. (This is allayed when an affable bilingual American gallery owner played by a quietly charming Willem Dafoe smooths over the proceedings.) She’s brought to a fine restaurant, whisked to an opulent palazzo party, and otherwise has luxury and intrigue thrust upon her as her various hosts curry favor with this quiet Roman girl who has escaped the jadedness which weighs them down.
Saverio Costanzo’s film unwraps with an easy-awkward charm: easy on the eyes, as these are the beautiful people; awkwardness emerging from the unkindness found amongst those beautiful people, foisted upon an everywoman who is torn between wonderment, confusion, and a desire to just get home. Even with their flaws, the characters are all likable, to one degree or another—although Josephine Esperanto’s shenanigans with her human toy make for at least one uneasy scene—and Rebecca Antonaci’s turn as Mimosa evolves from endearing deer-in-headlights into compelling mistress of her fate. Finally Dawn concludes with a low growl, as Mimosa’s maturation arc lands with a soft, barefoot walk alongside a soft, toothful companion.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART THREE
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Montréal 2025
More than once I was quickly impressed by a film’s animation only to discover that I was only watching the production company credits.
7/30: Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo
Crank down the musical score by half, and this would land in a far better place. Tsai Chia Ying attempts something risky here as he aims to fuse deep character emotion with ghostly horror. Chia Ming awakens every morning from an overhead drip. Every morning: this love-struck fellow is stuck in a loop wherein he witnesses the object of his affections die somehow while on a hiking trip taken to search for the remains of a mutual friend lost to the haunted mountains. Major No-No Points are awarded to the original trio, who decide to cut through a rather creepy barrier in the surrounding woods, accidentally disrupting an esoteric ceremony. Very nearly ending badly, the movie upgrades from regrettable to merely “meh” with its final, actual, conclusion.
$Positions
Mike meets his daily struggles with unwavering optimism and friendliness, which is no small feat in face of director Brandon Daley’s ceaseless abuse. Crypto (oh how I loathe you) sinks its talons in our hapless hero, clouding his judgment with every dip and spike. We follow a series of increasingly nasty twists of fate (and concurrent ill-decisions) as Mike’s already crummy life hits rock bottom—making true an early, optimistically-stated declaration that no, he’s “nowhere near the bottom yet!” With polyamory, drug addiction, medical debt, and somewhat more urine consumption than I might have preferred, $Positions is simultaneously icky, wacky, and heartfelt. Special shout-out to leading man Michael Kunick. I passed him after the screening commending his performance as one of the best depictions of Job to hit the screen.
Désolé, Pardon, Je m’excuse
Like many of her generation, office-worker Ella loves Internet videos. Unlike many of her generation (at least, I hope), she loves Internet videos released by a Continue reading 2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART THREE
2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART TWO
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Montréal 2025
No, I am not with the German wedding party, but it was kind of you to think so.
7/23: Every Heavy Thing
Mickey Reece drops a Brian De Palma-worthy sex-and-tech thriller on his hapless protagonist, Joe, an ad-man for a local newspaper. Stylish neon saturation, flickering screens, dangerous conversations, and an ever-rising body count steadily drip drip drip, pooling at Joe’s feet like so much stylish 1980s chic. Except Joe wants nothing at all to do with this nonsense surrounding him, and attempts valiantly to shrug off the machinations in order to lead his own, normal, hum-drum movie life. Reece once more plays around with genre (previous dissimilar genre outings include biopic and soap opera), and the fun he’s having with this project plays out in the final product. Joe’s determined passivity is relatable, and by the end you’ll agree with his friends: this reluctant hero is, for sure, “almost cool.”
The House With Laughing Windows
City dweller Stefano arrives in a remote Italian village to restore a painting in the local church. Hired by a fellow who is as diminutive as he is well-dressed, art guy checks in to the local hotel, only to be kicked out later and obliged to spend his nights at a semi-ruined old mansion. Quietly odd characters abound, hot chicks bed the outsider, and the cult of the artist whose work Stefano is restoring becomes more than a little menacing. But all told, I wish director Pupi Avati had gone full throttle. There’s danger: I want more; there’s violence: I want more; there’s atmosphere: I want more. As it stands, this movie will primarily appeal to dyed-in-the-wool giallo fans. Me, well, I am somewhat ashamed to admit there were stretches when the lull of the film score and the darkness of the theater almost tipped me into sleep.
Things That Go Bump in the East (Shorts Anthology)
“Magai-Gami” – dir. by Norihiro Niwatsukino
This must be a dry-run for a feature; but then again, sometimes that stretches things too thinly. Regardless, Norihiro’s little horror here is a creepy joy. Two young women visit a prohibited forest to encounter the titular entities for the purposes of Internet fame. A demon of hundreds of hands stares down one of Continue reading 2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART TWO
FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (2025)
Reflet dans un diamant mort
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DIRECTED BY: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
FEATURING: Yannick Renier, Céline Camara, Fabio Testi, Koen De Bouw, Thi-Mai Nguyen, Maria de Medeiros
PLOT: Retired superspy John D. finds his routine of drinking by the seaside interrupted when a lithe body washes ashore, triggering chaotic flashbacks to his days as a secret agent.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Cattet & Forzani whirl their inspirations in a blender while pushing a cornucopia of sub-genres up to and past the breaking point — including the popular kink, “CMNKWF”. (That’s “Clothed Male, Naked Katana-Wielding Female,” for those not in the loop.)
COMMENTS: There are two early giveaways that Reflection is going to be an oddity of excess. One is the long list of production companies. This is not uncommon for smaller-budget European films, but Cattet’s and Forzani’s film goes a bit beyond that, suggesting the filmmakers needed to scrape around to find brave investors. The second, foreshadowing the coming bombast, also appears in the credits: a blast of hyper-Bondian murder blasts and stabbings, with diamonds erupting from the colorful silhouettes of the victims, before a pleasure boat sinks down behind a growing blood-water column of text. And, as this is a European spy movie, there’s also the early topless scene, wherein a young woman exposes her breasts while tanning in a hotel’s private beach—exposing the diamond piercings that set off our film’s hero’s chain of memories.
And what a hero! Old John D. has the weathered good lucks of an erstwhile man of action, and young John D. has all the panache, pluck, and pizzazz that might reasonably (indeed, perhaps unreasonably) distilled into one superspy. The developments are a little hard to follow at the start, with intercuts of Old and Young John’s adventures. By the third act, we’re facing a massive explosion of double-dealings, glorious gadgetry, and face after face torn and otherwise peeled from John’s ultimate adversary, the manifestly deadly femme known only as “Serpentika”.
Cattet and Forzani exist somewhere above the speed of Ritchie and the grisliness of Tarantino, all while flirting with—and, on occasion, ravishing—the ambiguous meta-cinematic maneuvers of Fellini. With little room to breathe between outlandish capering (at least Old John’s timeline travels at a somewhat staid pace), the combined effect of the various shady machinations is to leave the viewer benumbed with bloody scintillation. Clawing together coherent memories of the chain of events, I can only roughly recall that one of Young John’s charges, an oil mega-baron, was murdered—but not before he kills John’s true love, a dashing young Black woman clad in a high-tech mirror dress, segments of which she leaves behind to allow John to follow her.
Or does the evil oil baron murder her? The narrator’s recollections are as murky as his cocktails. But there are roulette wheel orgasms, pentuplicate ninjas, art-and-murder by oil slick, and an unbelievable parade of increasingly dangerous (and art-house-styled) rogues standing between John and his vengeance. After you watch Reflection in a Dead Diamond, you will clamor for these Belgians to craft the next Bond movie. I’m sure the suits in charge of the franchise will gladly sacrifice the 100% clarity for the 100% boost in oomph and style.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: