Review of Italian for Beginners (2000) by Private U — 21 Jun 2008

My first experience with the Danish Dogme 95 group and cinematic style. At first, the extreme close-up framing of nearly every scene / lack of depth perspective seemed, well, in your face-like...but it's consistency throughout the film eventually muted my initial reaction, and I got used to it. The story's characters are an eclectic mix of personalities ranging from the calm and good-natured (the pastor), to the endearing and/or tragic (the klutzy bakery girl who probably suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and doesn't know it / the morphine-addicted, dying mother who never made it as a singer) to the unbelievable asshole-not-going-anywhere in life guy to the gorgeous Italian girl who seems to be the only "normal" character and who wants to marry the forty-something, possibly inept, sexually nervous guy.

There is a definite European/Scandinavian humor here: not heavy black comedy, but not entirely light-hearted or stupid goofy either. Just very natural and honest, without much added aesthetic flourish...which sums up much of Dogme's aims, I think.

My two favorite scenes: the bakery girl's dead father lying on the couch, bug-eyed and gaping mouth--way hilarious. And the sex scene in the Venetian alley on a folding mattress that just happened to be there.