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+ Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Toni Servillo
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| The red of the Italian flag runs out like blood on the poster for Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo |
QUICK REVIEW:
Giulio Andreotti is a migraine-plagued top politician and seven-time prime minister of Italy, who in the 1990s gets accused of having ties to the mob.
Toni Servillo (The Consequences of Love/Le Conseguenze dell'Amore (2004)) is masked unrecognizably in Oscar-nominated makeup as the enigmatic and at times comical real-life figure Andreotti, the title 'Divo' [the divine], and is convincing in the part. Il Divo is the 4th theatrical feature of Neapolitan master filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza (2013)), who wrote and directed it.
Sorrentino stages Servillo in a film, which feels more like a performance or perhaps rather a series of performances than a unified story. Il Divo refuses to serve us a conventional biopic narrative, and as a non-Italian, one will inevitably lose track of a lot of the story, also because Sorrentino, especially in the beginning, flings names and other information at us at machine gun pace. The challenging material can make Il Divo seem long, but its very lively camera, by cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (Youth (2015)), eclectic music, by Teho Teardo (The Right Thing/La Cosa Giusta (2009)) and many interesting faces make this difficult film highly inviting and worthwhile regardless.
Related posts:
Paolo Sorrentino: The day after ... The Oscars 2014
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza (2013) or, Jep Gambardelli's Rome
This Must Be the Place (2011) - Sorrentino's Nazi-hunting stoner cracker
2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
The Caiman/Il Caimano (2006) - Moretti's unfunny political comedy - strictly for Italians (actor)
Cost: 6.7 mil. $
Box office: 11.2 mil. $
= Big flop
[Il Divo was released May 23 (Cannes) and runs 110 minutes. The initial cut of the film was 145 minutes long. The real Andreotti walked out of a screening of the film, saying that it was "too much" and added that in the end he would be judged on his record. The film opened #61 in 2 theaters to a 13k $ opening weekend and peaked in 8 theaters in North America, where it grossed a paltry 0.2 mil. $ (1.8 % of the total gross). Its 3 biggest markets were its native Italy with 8.5 mil. $ (75.9 %), France with 0.9 mil. $ (8%) and the UK with 0.5 mil. $ (4.5 %). Il Divo won the Jury Prize in Cannes and was Oscar-nominated for Best Makeup, which it lost to Star Trek. It was also nominated for 4 European Film Awards and 16 David di Donatello Awards (Italy's Oscar), of which it won 7. Il Divo is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.5 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Il Divo?
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