/ Director
Ivan Polidoro
/ Cast
Gianfelice Imparato, Giovanni Ferreri, Mimmo Esposito, Lorenza Indovina, Roberto De Francesco.
/ Producer
Cecchi Gori
/ Length
95 mins.
/ Year
2006
/ Sponsor
Date :: Monday, November 2
Time :: 7:00 pm
Location :: MoPA in Balboa Park
Cost :: $5.00 donation suggested
Language :: Italian with English subtitles
Tickets :: On location
Basta un niente
Before you know it
Basta un niente is the elaboration of the actor/director’s Ivano Polidoro short film La rapina (The Theft). Once again in this series, we have the privilege of screening a director’s debut in feature film. Set in Naples and focusing on the lives and relationship of three friends, Peppe, Ivo and Rosario, Polidoro sets out to bring together stylistically some “commedia all’italiana” as one might find in a film such as Mario Monicelli’s 1958 I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street), with the rhythms of Neapolitan theatre.
The film’s setting provides a wonderful backdrop for this comedy, and the director uses the scenery of Naples’ famous Gulf as a seductive scape on which Peppe, Ivo and Rosario live their lives as if on vacation. Strolling in panama hats, Bermuda shorts and colourful shirts, almost oblivious to the stress that surrounds them, the rag-tag group’s professions provide a contradiction in terms that start to set the comedic/ ironic ball rolling. As undertaker, mailman and cemetery guard the stage is set to put their lives and tribulations on stage. To make this all the more interesting, Polidoro gives their lives another, more creative, dimension: they perform music as a band in local clubs. But our protagonists’ lives hide more tumultuous undercurrents. Always on the lookout for a way out of their patchwork existence, and hopeful for events to spice up their lives, the three are given a golden opportunity when a local thief, Palo e’ fierro, is killed during a jewel heist.
This is good, entertaining fare as Polidoro’s first film. If there is one criticism that one might bring against it, it’s that at a certain point the director loses sight of his threesome’s potential. With the introduction of elements that do not give the film’s initial structure much support, and that don’t play out to any apparent relevance, the narrative begins to fray and lose much of its power.
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