Blu-ray Review: A Ciambra (2017)

Now Available 

A kinetic slice of neorealistic life, although A Ciambra tells a fully contained coming-of-age story, the sophomore effort from Jonas Carpignano was originally made to serve as a companion piece to his award-winning debut Mediterranea. Fortunately, however, the Cannes Film Festival Director's Fortnight award-winner stands exceptionally tall on its own.

Set in Southern Italy's Gioia Tauro, the film chronicles the life and family of fourteen year old Pio Amato, who stars as a thinly disguised version of himself along with the rest of the cast of unprofessional actors (most of whom are Amato's relatives).

The grandson of a Romani immigrant who lives with his family in extreme poverty stealing electricity from and working for the rich Italians in the surrounding area, as a petty criminal who longs to be taken seriously, Pio can't wait to grow up.

When his father and brother get arrested during a robbery, Pio vows to use the opportunity to become the man of the house and prove them all wrong. Working alongside Ayiva (Koudous Seihon), an older African immigrant who is saving up money to send to his sister and daughter back home, Pio gets to work stealing from tourists.

Boldly climbing aboard trains only to leave moments later with a stranger's luggage, the sight of people freely leaving an area that the young illiterate boy most likely never will is a haunting one indeed and part of A Ciambra's power is in just how long it stays with you after it ends.

A complex portrait of a multicultural southern Italy where racism, bias, and socioeconomic inequality is at an all time high, although Gioia Taura feels like it's a million miles away at the start of the film, by the end, you realize that the issues affecting the residents there (ranging from prejudice to the disparity of rich vs. poor) are the same ones facing us everywhere, only magnified.

Whether Pio's on a train going nowhere or using the guise of a motorbike ride to hug a friend goodbye in a heartbreaking third act twist, as Italy's official Oscar submission for the Best Foreign Film of 2018, Carpignano's moving chronicle of the determined youth's hard-fought journey from boy to man follows in the footsteps of classic Italian and modern global works of Neorealism.

And although Bicycle Thieves and City of God immediately come to mind, the film also owes a thematic debt to other international coming-of-age classics such as Truffaut's The 400 Blows, which A Ciambra appears to reference in a few select shots.

While producer Martin Scorsese offered notes on the film's cut, aside from a minimal nod to Magical Realism while paying tribute to Grandfather Amato's past wandering the land, Carpignano treats Gioia Taura and its people with a near journalistic integrity in A Ciambra, unwilling to alter much of what's in front of his eyes in his attempt to bridge viewer and subject.

Adamant in his belief that, as he says in the press notes, "exposure to 'foreign elements,' whether they be people, food, or music is the only way to dissolve the artificial boundaries between us," in this microcosm of life in Southern Italy which might as well be life everywhere, Carpignano uses film to do just that.

Weaving in a plethora of bonus material from a short film and featurette to lengthy documentaries on the ninety-one day production to bring you the whole story, although it's missing Mediterranea, the gorgeous Blu-ray transfer from MPI and Sundance Selects delivers viewers to Gioia Taura Pio style - with no train ticket required.

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The Way I Spent the End of the World

Director:
Catalin Mitulescu

Beginner’s luck is one thing but it’s always best for beginners to have the talent to help inspire such luck as evidenced with the production, release and subsequent overwhelming acclaim for writer/director Catalin Mitulescu’s feature length debut, The Way I Spent the End of the World.

Having been screened at internationally recognized festivals in cities including Toronto, Venice, Berlin, Rotterdam, Melbourne, Helsinki, and Hong Kong, Mitulescu’s celebrated film received two additional honors-- first as Romania’s official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards and secondly when its star Dorotheea Petre garnered a Best Actress award from the Cannes Film Festival. However, for film buffs, perhaps its greatest feat came from the overwhelming support of master directors Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas) and Martin Scorsese who served as executive producers to the film and via their name recognition, helped ensure its wider release in getting the movie seen by more audiences before their goal was enhanced yet again with the title's inclusion in the Film Movement series. All of these extraordinary feats over the course of an entire career would be impressive enough but for them to have happened to a filmmaker with his first feature length release makes talented beginner Catalin Mitulescu someone to watch indeed.

Framing a coming of age tale in the last year of Ceausescu’s dictatorship in 1989 Bucharest, we meet the seventeen year old beautiful, intelligent Eva (Dorotheea Petre) who, along with her boyfriend, accidentally shatters a valuable bust of the dictator at their school. Expelled after revealing her involvement in the unintentional incident, Eva is sent to reform trade school where she meets Andrei, the rumored son of arrested pamphlet passing revolutionaries who has become a hot topic of conversation in her neighborhood. Eva and Andrei form a fast friendship while they plot their Romanian escape which is viewed with jealousy and suspicion by Eva’s loving but mischievous seven year old brother Lalalil (Timotei Duma) who, along with his loyal group of rebellious kids plot to exact lethal revenge on the dictator for driving his sister from his home.

As Cinematical’s Martha Fischer wrote in her Toronto International Film Festival Review, The Way I Spent the End of the World is less about conditions under Ceausescu’s communist regime and is more focused on depicting the ups and downs of life for the country’s working classes prior to the revolution. With an emphasis on character driven action that offers a stunning showcase for not only its charismatic leading lady but also its precociously gifted young star Duma, the film boasts a gorgeous score by Alexander Balanescu and should definitely strike a chord with fans of similar tales of youth coming of age in difficult political times such as Machuca, Viva Cuba (also available from Film Movement), and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.

Note: My screening of the film came from the recommendation of both a thoughtful reader as well as an acquaintance at Film Movement. Thanks for the heads up, guys, and keep those ideas coming!