Film Movement DVD Review: Garibaldi's Lovers (2012)

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Original Title: The Commander and The Stork

Because he focuses on the topic of relationships, writer/director Silvio Soldini has never run out of ideas for new feature film material. And given his instinctive understanding that by fixating on the complex, always evolving nature of human interactions – from familial dysfunction to happy accidents, missed connections, new friends and romantic love – Silvio Soldini has been able to write about everything.

Finding new ways of telling a relationship story with each passing year, the Italian filmmaker has produced one critically acclaimed award-winner after another – venturing into comedy, drama, whimsy, magical realism and even erotica to craft films full of enthusiasm, ideas and above all passion for his topics and characters.

His affection for the people that populate every frame of his work is infectious and his newest confection Garibaldi’s Lovers is a charming if overly ambitious – bordering on messy – celebration of a handful of overlooked outsiders whose lives begin to overlap in a number of interesting ways.

A well-intentioned people-mover filled with missed connections and unlikely new alliances a la his breakthrough U.S. film festival favorite Bread and Tulips, Garibaldi’s Lovers muddies up what could’ve been a wonderful, whimsical comedic tale of lonely people coming together with too many distractions from start to finish.

The greatest problem stems from an ineffective magical realism style framing device wherein the statues of historical figures (including the film’s eponymous Giuseppe Garibaldi) converse with one another complete with political digs and insider banter only those well-versed in Italian culture and history will get. Trying to milk this technique for satirical humor, the statues also evaluate the changes that exist in contemporary metropolitan Italy 150 years after the country’s unification.

Whereas that one device would be enough to make the film only slightly whimsical, Soldini indulges his creativity to the max, incorporating the existence of a ghost who drops by her old apartment for conversations in the middle of the night and a boy who speaks to and understands a stork. Needless to say, in Garibaldi’s Lovers, there are just way too many ideas at play before we even delve into the problems facing the main characters.

Essentially, the film tells the story of Leone, a hardworking widower and father of two who struggles to raise his increasingly independent son Elia (the aforementioned “stork whisperer”) and daughter who’s been publically humiliated after her boyfriend posted a sexually explicit video featuring her that he filmed without her knowledge.

Worried he’s doing everything wrong, Leone’s only solace comes from nightly “conversations” with the ghost of his deceased wife who shows up out-of-the-blue still wearing the same bathing suit that she’d had on when she perished after an ore accidentally whacked her on the head.

Desperately in need of moving on, Leone is surprised to discover the stirrings of romantic attraction to a hopelessly klutzy yet adorable, bespectacled, gifted young artist named Diana who’s been jilted out of rent money by a corrupt client whose shady dealings found him put behind bars before he could pay her.

Hired to paint a gaudy, over-the-top fresco in the office of the lawyer who’s taken on her case – it’s there Diana first crosses paths with Leone when he arrives to file suit against his daughter’s ex-boyfriend to get that video taken down from the internet.

Further connecting the two individuals – after getting caught shoplifting frozen frogs to feed his pet stork, Elia finds a far more politically subversive Tuesdays With Morrie like-minded friend in an elderly rebel who just so happens to be Diana’s landlord.

Unfortunately, as promising as the main plot is, the film is a tad too overly complex given the sheer number of supporting characters and subplots that are introduced but don’t have enough screen time to fully develop.

And while Garibaldi’s Lovers would have been infinitely better off without the titular framing device that Soldini culled from the Alain Tanner film Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, it’s nonetheless salvaged by a winning intersection of all of the major characters and plot-points in an inventive final act that finds Leone traveling to Switzerland to locate his son.

A bit of a letdown compared to Soldini’s vastly superior Bread and Tulips as well as his earlier Film Movement release Agata and the Storm, it’s still far more audience friendly than the depressingly angry family dysfunction drama Days and Clouds.

Working off a story idea he conceived with two previous collaborators, Doriana Leondeff and Marco Pettenello, Silvio Soldini’s newest release (which was originally titled The Commander and the Stork) has just been served up on Film Movement DVD and download for non-members after premiering last year as part of their DVD-of-the-Month-Club subscription.

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Film Movement DVD Review: Days and Clouds (2007)

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Casting aside his more whimsical style established in the winning Bread and Tulips and in his uneven yet charming Italian romantic comedy/drama Agata and the Storm in favor of-- as director Silvio Soldini notes in the Film Movement press release-- "the story of a couple almost in documentary form," we get a painful glimpse through a cracked mirror at the effect the current global economic crisis can have on families.



His adherence to a docudrama style recalls the hand-held Danish Dogme movement and-- most pointedly-- the Cinema Verite approach of John Cassavetes in the '60s and '70s who sometimes stayed with characters (who seemed as though they could be our friends, family or neighbors) for so long that it almost became embarrassingly harrowing to witness them in their darkest moments.

Nominated for 15 David Di Donatello Awards or the equivalent of Italy's Oscars and deservedly garnering two statues for the leading ladies of the film-- actress Margherita Buy with whom all empathy resides throughout and supporting actress Alba Rohrwacher-- Days and Clouds does begin in earnest sophistication with a high gloss look at a well-to-do upper class Italian couple celebrating the recent graduation of middle-aged Elsa (Buy) from an art restoration and history program.



Now finished with her advanced degree and still busily working for free on restoring an old gorgeous location she feels may unearth the artwork of the subject of her dissertation, Elsa's night of singing, camaraderie with friends, and drunken revelry ends in a smashed bedside lamp she accidentally knocks over and then steps on the following morning.

The gash in her foot is just the beginning of a tremendous cut that will slice through her relationship as in the harsh light of day she's faced with the confession of her husband Michele (Antonio Albanese) that he has been out of work for two months-- manipulated out of the company he co-founded when he stuck to his principles and spoke out against outsourcing labor that resulted in the job loss of a number of his Italian employees.



Having made the decision to keep this secret so as not to upset the conclusion of his wife's dream study, the two face the fact that they must sell their home, his beloved boat (which had become his floating office as he'd hidden there during the day since he'd been forced out of work) and with the realization that their savings consists of roughly 21,000 euros.



Having planned an expensive trip to Cambodia, hiring servants, throwing lavish parties, and often treating friends to dinner-- it takes awhile for his masculine prideful deception to fully sink in until Elsa faces facts and makes an active attempt to find work. In doing so, the educated middle-aged woman finds employment in both a call center and as a night secretary, spending the rest of her day restoring art in between jobs as her husband struggles to cope, losing his grip on sanity with outrageous mood swings as he learns he's over-qualified for a number of jobs and then ends up starting a small impromptu handyman company with two men who used to work for him.

When those men find work and with his wife becoming the breadwinner as they're forced into a small apartment, Michele soon becomes despondent, barely making an effort, pushing loved ones away including his grown daughter Alice (Rohrwacher), and collapsing under the pressure he's facing as his wife tries to understand and move forward.



An important piece of filmmaking that's nonetheless a chore to get through since-- similar to the way the Oscar quality box office plummeted this season-- the last thing people want to watch during times of unprecedented hardship is a similar situation reflected onscreen. And likewise, while it's a highly intelligent offering-- anchored by the portrayal of Buy-- it's hard to generate much sympathy for the selfish, machismo, and egotistical Michele. Nor do we feel when there's so much suffering going on-- terribly moved by the fact that a wealthy couple must slum it for awhile and give up on a trip to Cambodia and a few servants while others live on food stamps or the dole.

Overall, it's an admirable effort with its heart in the right place, perhaps with a few adjustments Days and Clouds could have been the type of modern day Italian neorealist dramas with which more of the middle class or lower middle class could've related. And while the performances are tremendous, for Verite done right I think I'll stick with Cassavetes and choose my Soldini a la Bread and Tulips (at least for the time being).

Bread and Tulips

Director: Silvio Soldini

In this delightfully creative confection, winner of 9 David Di Donatello Awards (including Best Picture), a beautiful housewife named Rosalba finds herself accidentally forgotten by her husband and children while on vacation. At first uneasy about being left behind, Rosalba (played by the luminous Licia Maglietti) decides to give herself her own private vacation and travels solo to Venice. Once in her new surroundings, she begins to become a member of the eclectic community. After Rosalba takes a position in a floral shop run by an anarchist, she rediscovers her love for accordion playing, befriends a holistic masseuse, and rents a room with a friendly but suicidal waiter from Iceland with a mysterious past. When her needy, unfaithful husband’s shirts begin piling up without someone to iron, he hires an avid detective-novel reading plumber to track her down. Of course, like Rosalba, soon the plumber is caught up in the inviting community and discovers a new sense of self as well. Turly original, fans of Chocolat will feel right at home in this, the official Director’s Fortnight selection of the Cannes Film Festival. The always witty Silvio Soldini strikes again blending the best of foreign cinema including the wistful dreamers and coincidences often encountered in French films, the Greek’s passion for love and an element of magic fantasy reminiscent of Spanish cinema, in his downright lovable ode to the Italian sweet life. Bread and Tulips would make a delightful companion to Jeunet’s Amelie for a romantic double feature.

Agata and the Storm

Director: Silvio Soldini


Nominated for eight David Di Donatello Awards (the Italian Oscars), this frothy, magical celebration of beauty and sexuality in a middle-aged cast has drawn critical comparisons to Almodovar and Jeunet for its sense of whimsy and usage of bright colors and vivid cinematography that pop off the screen. However, Silvio Soldini’s tale of three distinctly different characters who learn that they are related and come together to form a unique family bound more by compassion and love than blood reminded me more of Lasse Hallstrom’s Chocolat for its offbeat characters and welcome, inviting atmosphere that draws viewers in from the beginning. We want to be a part of this Italian community and for roughly two hours we are. Leading a stellar cast, Licia Maglietta shines as Agata, a beautiful, intelligent bookstore owner involved in a passionate affair with a married man thirteen years her junior. When she has her heart broken (until a twist near the end reminiscent of Sturges’s Palm Beach Story), the resulting “storm” throughout her body causes electrical shorts as she manages to burn out light bulbs and affect toasters, hair dryers and street lamps simply by using them. Her beloved straight-laced architect brother Gustavo (played by Emilio Solfrizzi) has his workaholic life and marriage to a sensual female television version of Dr. Phil shaken by the news that biologically he’s related to a philandering, charismatic clothing salesman named Romeo (portrayed with fiery charisma by Giuseppe Battidton). Romeo, ritually unfaithful yet deeply in love with his wheelchair bound wife Daria (Maria Nappo), lives the life of a passionate dreamer and manages to teach his newfound brother Gustavo and sister Agata a thing or two, and they rub off on him as well. Perfectly charming, full of spirit and life, Agata and the Storm is Italian cinema at its most joyous, once again delivered to audiences from filmmovement.com and available at most larger public libraries.