lewianbra

I'm a non-Italian living in Italy. I discovered the first series of L'amica geniale soon after moving to Italy, and I immediately got hooked on it.

I loved the show from beginning to end. It's the first time I give 10/10 here, so for sure that means something. The best thing of the show is the portrayal of the complexity of the main characters, Lila and Lenu, who we follow here from early childhood into adulthood (with a prologue and epilogue in the sixties). Their friendship is central to the series. It is an at times troubled relationship including competition, jealousy, misgivings, but also a powerful commitment to each other that is renewed and refreshed many times and seems to draw the two together even if at times they seem to look for distance. I've got to say that I don't even like them very much, or let's say, both regularly do things that annoy me, but the great thing is that all the complexity and issues, individual and between them, come together in a very credible and lively way. These characters just convince me as troubled but very fascinating human beings in a way I have rarely experienced in other fiction.

The character development and interaction, also with others, is just very convincingly conceived. Whenever something new happens, we discover something about these characters, but it all makes for a consistent overall impression.

Many secondary characters are very convincing and interesting as well, for example Lenu's mother and the children of them both (great child acting all over the place here), but also several of their male counterparts (this is certainly feminist TV and I wonder whether the men overall have been shown in a somewhat too negative light, but I don't really think so - it still seems comfortably on the credible side).

Apparently a lot of research has also been done regarding the historical background, including behaviour and points of view of the local people. A major attraction for me is the Italian contemporary history and culture showcased in the show, and chances are that this is done in a very realistic and accurate way that can teach us much about how things were in these times. The show is much about the relations between men and women between 1950 and 1990 or so, conditions of growing up after the war, and also about education and children-parents relations. Italian politics and events that left their mark in the collective consciousness also feature as side aspects, as do organised crime and drug addiction (the treatment of Red Brigades terrorism is rather similar to La miglior gioventu or Heimat in Germany, and one may wonder how many people in Italy or Germany actually knew top terrorists, but here we go), without overshadowing the development of the main characters.

Filming and acting are top notch, too. Note that this is serious and gloomy from beginning to end, and don't expect any laughs or anything light. There is enough happening anyway; I think it is paced quite well with enough time to explore certain situations and relationships, but none of this overstays its welcome.

In some other reviews I have read some criticism of the last series, Series 4. I agree that it is tough for the viewer to handle the change of most actors between Series 3 and 4. That said, Irene Maiorino is an outstanding choice for Lila, continuing from Gaia Girace in the smoothest possible way, bringing out brilliantly all the traces of Lila consistently with what we had seen before. Alba Rohrwacher is in principle a very good choice for Lenu, but the way she looks different from Margherita Mazzucco for sure takes some getting used to. Other actors have been more or less fittingly replaced, with a somewhat unsettling variety of age leaps.

Other than that I have no issues with the fourth series. The dynamic between the characters with Lenu with her daughters back in the Rione in Napoli where everything begun, meeting again many characters from their past, aged more or less well, rebuilding the old connections, aversions, and troubles under half new half old conditions, had me glued to the screen just as the three series before it. Certain things move a bit faster than before, but I don't mind. The ending is fine by me, too. It is legitimate to leave certain questions open, and it doesn't come over as lazy here.

Great TV, unique and fascinating. Absolutely recommended.

This film lives from the images and their coordination with the interesting and tasteful soundtrack by Paolo Aralla. It focuses on Carlo Scarpa's interest for Japan, for Japanese culture and architecture. There is a nice interplay between the parts of the film set in Japan and those in Venice (and elsewhere). This is not a film to acquire systematic knowledge of Scarpa and his work, as the spoken words (and/or subtitles) are rather philosophical or even poetic than explanatory (in my view they don't quite reach the standard of the images and music). There is a bit on architectural work/details and very little biographical or chronological information. But mostly the images speak for themselves. A good film if you don't expect an informative documentary (there is a tiny bit of that), but come with eyes and ears open for new impressions.

This is a well done and credible courtroom drama, showing the 1976 trial against Pierre Goldman in an apparently very authentic way. This was a re-trial after Goldman had earlier been accused and convicted of several armed robberies and two murders. He had admitted the robberies but insisted on his innocence regarding the murders. Being a Jew and political activist from the extreme left with a problematic life before the events in question, he felt (probably rightly so) that the earlier trials were biased against him. The re-trial was apparently very prominent in France at the time.

The major attraction here is Arieh Worthalter's stunning performance as Pierre Goldman. I have read that he was generally seen as an unpleasant character, and I see why that is, but I actually ended up liking him a lot. In the very beginning he insists that the trial should focus on what actually happened in order to show his innocence rather than focus on his character and personal history. Proceedings would not totally follow his advice here but at least to some extent. Although it probably wasn't meant like that, I read this also as a critical comment on "The Anatomy of a Fall", another French drama with a heavy courtroom presence, in which I found the court's fixation on the character of the suspect rather silly, to the extent that it made me worry about the French justice system. Not so much here.

Most other acting is fine, too. That said, the film is rather one-dimensional, showing the court proceedings and pretty much nothing else. We learn something about the political climate and background, but overall the focus is "will he be acquitted of the murders or not", and maybe also whether there is manipulation against him going on. He has both support and haters in the audience who often makes itself heard. It annoyed me to some extent that not the full width of the screen was used, apparently for artistic reasons!? So the entertainment value is somewhat below "The Anatomy of a Fall" although the court is more credible. It is a good film though, between 7 and 8 stars.