July
2002
Trenton
Public Library’s Summer Foreign Film Series:
July’s European films are about change for better and worse
By
Dan Dodson
The
best thing about film festivals is wandering into an unknown foreign
movie and feeling like you’ve discovered gold. By the time
a picture makes it all the way from Sweden or Italy to the Trenton
library, odds are it's a great film. Bravo to the library for
its summer foreign film festival.
The
schedule includes: House of Angels (Sweden) on July 11
and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Italy) on July 25.
The Film Festival continues in August with three films A Chef
in Love (August 1), Character (August 22) and Window
to Paris (August 29). All dates are Thursdays with show times
at 6:30 p.m. Please note that Ferrari parking is in the library’s
side lot.
Small
town in Sweden is invaded by aliens
House
of Angels employs "city people visiting the small town"
as its theme. The theme allows conflicts in morality, custom and
generation to surface easily and provides a convenient device
for the moviemaker to explore their resolution. American filmmakers
did this in 1950s science fiction and monster flicks when outsiders
moved to town and strange things began to happen. There aren’t
really any aliens or monsters in House of Angels, just
some very strange Eurotrash and some very provincial locals.
House
of Angels (1992) is about how a small town reacts to its first
drop of fresh blood in years. By dying a wealthy hermit creates
an opportunity for a local landowner to buy his large estate.
Unbeknownst to the locals, the old hermit had a granddaughter,
Fanny, who comes from Germany to claim the estate with her leather-clad
"friend" Zak. Rather than sell the estate, she decides
to stay for the summer and invites her sophisticated Euro-friends
to stay with them. Fanny is beautiful and different, so the local
church lady, who is also the landowner’s wife, plots to drive
her away. The fun in House of Angels is in how Fanny’s
influence ripples through transformations in the supporting cast.
Director
Colin Nutley is an experienced craftsman who builds his movie
with a rich palette of movie symbols (the old family estate, the
biker drifter, fields of corn and a funeral). Good movies, like
good literature, use symbols like these to help tell the story.
Though House of Angels is subtitled you can almost understand
the film without them.
House
of Angels is a reminder that towns (like Trenton) can get
old and stale and need open their arms to the Fannys and Zaks
of the world.
Fascism
raids The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
The
fear of encroaching fascism creates a hopeless mood in The
Garden of the Finzi-Continis and paints an unsettled backdrop
for a love story. The Academy rewarded Vittoria De Sica for his
work with an Oscar in 1971.
The
film opens with a group of wealthy young people riding their bikes
into the Finzi-Continis’ garden to play tennis. The tennis
club kicked the kids out for being Jewish. The Finzi-Continis
are a wealthy Jewish family who can afford to ignore fascism behind
a large wall surrounding their estate. Their daughter, Micol,
has an interest in her childhood friend Giorgio, who is also Jewish
but a politically aware upper-middle-class college student. As
a child, Micol invited Giorgio over the wall surrounding her garden
but as an adult she puts up a personal wall to protect herself
from the fear of being in love with him.
Giorgio
and his father also have a wall between them as Giorgio becomes
concerned about the Fascists while is father defends his country.
Giorgio’s family is more concerned that they will lose their
Aryan servant than that they have become third-class citizens.
All of the walls eventually crumble in the face of World War II’s
onset.
Lino
Capolicchio, as Giorgio, carries the movie with an understated
performance that reflects the pain of both unrequited love and
racial persecution. In a small role, Inna Alexeieff steals her
scenes as the Finzi-Contini grandmother who represents the sad
loss of Italy’s past. The final scene is the most poignant
of all.
This
is the Italy your Italian grandmother in Chambersburg came from:
a mixed-up country of traditional culture, national pride and
blind persecution.
# # #
Dan
can be reached at dan@livingonthenet.com
