blegh

Dazzling style, co-sign on FitFortDanga's excellent mini-review. I think Wong Kar-wai has seen this film. Edit: Actually, I think this is perfect for what it is, and deserves a 100.

I can't quite decide how I feel about it. It's so raw with emotion that you can't help but get invested in it but it sometimes feels a bit to sparse and drawn out.

Overflowing with unspoken emotions and a deep sense of yearning and loss. The extensive flashbacks - implemented at the drop of a hat - lend the film a somewhat surreal quality, and provide a linear emotional arc that is at once able to establish the past history of the relationship while moving it forward at the same time. Beautifully shot and wonderfully romantic in an understated manner.

Very admirable presentation, with great framing and an intriguing style of editing. However, it's not overtly stylized and in fact comes across as quite minimalistic. Unfortunately, I wasn't very moved by the romance nor interested in the director's immense focus on minutiae. It doesn't help that the lead is dead weight.

Somehow Olmi can film even the most tedious actions of everyday life and still keep me interested.

So laid back, it's almost like a particularly dreary city symphony with the narrative a fuzzy, hardly discernible undercurrent. Olmi's work is in a way what Italian neorealism had tried to shoot for and usually missed. An ever-present mundane tedium, like a humming. The smallest moments of contentment magnified by the awkward detachment surrounding them to seem like joys. As in Il Posto and La Cotta, even the image of a party, for all its dancing and confetti, is oddly depressing.

One of the most romantic movies I've ever seen. Full of yearning and reverie, beautiful music and images. Olmi's editing is masterfully unique, cutting in flashbacks while the sounds of the present continue. The sense of longing and disconnection is palpable. In one scene, Giovanni's co-workers are playing tricks on him in the night. Giovanni tries to join in the fun, but is thwarted by circumstance. That heartbreaking feeling of isolation is present throughout the film. A real treat.