The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza (2013) or, Jep Gambardelli's Rome

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+ Best Rome Movie of the Year
+ Best Italian Movie of the Year

Toni Servillo sits by the majestic statue in front of the National Museum in Rome at night on the poster for Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty

Jep Gambardelli is the king of Rome's night life, but he is also an aging bachelor, who has only written one book decades ago.

This soft-mannered, yet pointed vivant, his memories, philosophies and attitude to life is truly worth spending a couple of hours with. He is the character but the film is a sprawling ode to Rome and to life in general. The Great Beauty is an overwhelmingly beautiful, sensorial film with breathtaking photography by Luca Bigazzi (This Must Be the Place (2011)) and an eclectic music universe by Lele Marchitelli (Italian Gangsters (2015)).
Toni Servillo (Il Divo (2008)) as Gambardelli and every actor beneath him act flawlessly. The film alternately chastises contemporary society (mostly) affectionately and engulfs us in otherworldly beauty. It deliberately blends eternal qualities and the notion of the sacrosanct, a higher plane, and earthly beauty with human vanity, idiocy, the ridiculous. Of course it owes a lot to Italian master filmmaker Federico Fellini and especially his Rome-set masterpiece La Dolce Vita (1960), but that seems inevitable for any ambitious Rome-set production dealing with life, love and beauty in modern society. The Great Beauty is its own film.
It is co-written by Umberto Contarello (This Must Be the Place) and director Paolo Sorrentino (The Consequences of Love/Le Conseguenze dell'Amore (2004)). It is a succulent, flamboyant dance with life and among the year's best films. It is too much and just right at the same time. A tall and fatty temptation, not unlike many of the best dishes of the Italian kitchen, which one will want to return to many a time.

Related posts:

Paolo Sorrentino: The day after ... The Oscars 2014

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]  

This Must Be the Place (2011) - Sorrentino's Nazi-hunting stoner cracker
The Caiman/Il Caimano (2006) - Moretti's unfunny political comedy - strictly for Italians (actor)  

Watch the trailer for the movie with English subtitles here

Cost: 9.2 mil. € or ca. 10.3 mil. $
Box office: 24.2 mil. $
= Flop
[Albeit a small flop. The film played in competition in Cannes, in Toronto International Film Festival and at other festivals, won the Best Foreign Film Oscar and Golden Globe and made its way onto many top 10 lists of the year. It grossed 2.8 mil. $ in North America (12 % of the total gross), and 9.5 mil. $ (39 %) in Italy. Its third biggest market was, curiously, the Netherlands, with 2.7 mil. $ (11 %). The Great Beauty is 91 % Certified Fresh with a critical average of 7.8 on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Great Beauty?

This Must Be the Place (2011) - Sorrentino's Nazi-hunting stoner cracker

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The art designer of this poster for Paolo Sorrentino's This Must Be the Place might have gone for the look of one of the album covers of the band The Cure, whose front man Robert Smith, Sean Penn's look in the film is inspired by

QUICK REVIEW:

Retired rock-veteran Cheyenne does nothing at home in Ireland, when his father dies and he sets out to find the old Nazi, who humiliated his old man decades ago in Auschwitz.

Sean Penn (Milk (2008)), Frances McDormand (Fargo (1996)) and other actors do well here in Paolo Sorrentino's (Il Divo/Il Divo: La Spettacolare Vita di Giulio Andreotti (2008)) English-language debut, which gets its title from a classic song by Talking Heads, which David Byrne (Lulu on the Bridge (1998)) performs in the film in its probably most memorable scene.
The structure of the story, written by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello (The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza (2013)), is offbeat, just as the protagonist. Unfortunately its ending was, to me, very unsatisfying.

Related reviews:

The day after ... The Oscars 2014 
Paolo Sorrentino: The Caiman/Il Caimano (2006) - Moretti's unfunny political comedy - strictly for Italians (actor)

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 28 mil. $
Box office: 11.6 mil. $
= Huge flop
[This Must Be the Place was an Italian majority production with co-producers from Ireland and France. It premiered in 2012 in North America to an incredibly paltry 0.1 mil. $ result (just 1 % of the total gross!) It was a big hit in Sorrentino's native Italy, where it made 6.1 mil. €. He is such a hot ticket in Europe at the moment that the flop didn't hurt his career much: Especially because he followed it up with the Best Foreign Film Oscar winner The Great Beauty (2013).]

What do you think of This Must Be the Place?