10 Italian movies for your summer viewing pleasure

June 26, 8:09 PMItalian Living ExaminerSerenella Leoni

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Italian Living Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

As the summer months create a warm and lazy atmosphere, why not curl up on your couch during the sultry evenings with a cooling drink and enjoy some great movie viewing?  If you can deal with subtitles and love cinema history, there are some wonderful Italian offerings for your viewing pleasure.

Readers have been asking for a list of movies that are representative of the Italian lifestyle through various decades.  The following list is from movies I have viewed (many for the second time) this year.

After you watch these movies, please share your reviews or comments with us.

Films from the list below are available for rental or purchase. The information on these movies is from The Internet Movie Database (IMDb):

1) The Night of the Shooting Stars – La Notte di San Lorenzo (1982)
The Night of San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars, is the night when dreams come true in Italian folklore. In 1944, a group of Italians flee their town after hearing rumors that the Nazis plan to blow it up and that the Americans are about to arrive to liberate them

2) Umberto D. - (1952)
Umberto Domenico Ferrari, an elderly and retired civil servant, is desperately trying to maintain a decent standard of living on a rapidly dwindling state pension. But he's up against his tyrannical landlady, who keeps demanding rent that he can't pay (while renting his room out to prostitutes during the day), and his only friends are the pregnant housemaid and his little dog Flike...

3) A Brief Vacation – Una Breve Vacanza (1973)
A woman lives a miserable life in the basement of her Milan apartment, with her boring in-laws and three children (boys). Her husband has been injured. Her bleak life takes an unexpected turn when she is diagnosed with tuberculosis and has to go to a sanatorium in the Italian Alps. At the medical clinic in Milan she meets young mechanic with the similar health problems. At the sanatorium she meets again the same man and they start a passionate love affair. All good things must come to an end. When she is cured, she has to return to that rat hole from which she only briefly emerged.

4) Caterina in the Big City – Caterina Va in Cittá (2003)
When her father, Giancarlo is transferred to Rome from the small country town of Montalto Di Castro, Caterina, a 12 years old girl, will discover her new classmates, a totally new world, an ambient extremely divided politically. She starts developing her friendship with the "left side", represented by Margherita, and the right, Daniela, side of her class. She will lose herself, without knowing who she really is. However, maybe Edward, the young Australian boy, who lives in the apartment across hers, can help her more that she thinks.

5) Family Flaw – Un difetto di famiglia (2002)
A runaway coffin, a conservative wedding, an eccentric older man, two transsexuals, the police and an adorable puppy, collide on a humorous and heartwarming journey through the picturesque South of Italy. The "unexpected" death of 103 year-old Rosa creates an awkward family reunion the evening before what was to be a lush and opulent wedding. Rosa's grand-daughter, Chiara Gammarota, is set to marry the son of a wealthy general, much to the excitement of her conservative father, Nicolo. Francesco, Nicolo's "eccentric" brother caused a town scandal when he revealed his homosexuality 40 years earlier. He has returned for the wedding-turned-funeral and the two polar opposites see each other for the first time in decades. Acting on the final wishes of their mother the conflicting brothers reluctantly embark on drive through the countryside to bury their mother in their hometown; forcing them to confront family secrets, learn to love one another again and discover the true meaning of "Family Values."

6) The Swindle – Il Bidone (1955)
Aging small-time con man Augusto, who swindles peasants, works with two younger men: Roberto, who wants to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Bruno, nicknamed Picasso, who has a wife and daughter and wants to paint. Augusto avoids the personal entanglements, spending money at clubs seeking the good life. His attitude changes when he runs into his own daughter, whom he rarely sees, and realizes she's now a young woman and in need of his help to continue her studies. His usual partners are away, so he goes in with others to run a swindle, and they aren't forgiving when he claims he's given the money back to their mark. They leave him beaten, robbed, and alone

7) Seven Beauties – Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975)
Directed by Lina Wertmüller
Pasqualino, an Italian everyman, deserts the army during World War II. Germans capture him and send him to a prison camp, where he does just about anything to survive. In lengthy flashbacks, we see him and his family of seven unattractive sisters (the seven beauties), his accidental murder of one sister's lover, his confession and imprisonment, his calculated switch to an asylum, his rape of a patient, and his volunteering to be a soldier to escape confinement. To the chagrin of his obese German captor, his weak and cowardly character enables him to survive the war and return to Naples where he has a plan to survive the next world catastrophe.üller

9) Facing Windows – La Finestra di Fronte (2003)
Giovanna is a bookkeeper in a company which packs chickens. She is married to a man who has a precarious job. First she starts being curious about a young man who lives in the block opposite hers, and then she falls in love with him. The relationship between the two becomes much stronger when she starts to find out more about him from an old man who bursts into their lives. The old man, obsessed with the memories of some things that happened n the long past autumn of 1943, has lost his memory and finds refuge in Giovanna. Written by

10) Seduced and Abandoned – Sedotta e Abbandonata (1964)
Agnese a 15-year-old Sicilian girl is seduced and impregnated by Peppino, her sister's Matilde fiancé;. Soon Vincenzo, Agnese's father, discovers everything and after had hit like hell his daughter run to Peppino house and did the same. He also oblige Peppino to marry the 'dishonored' Agnese instead than Matilde.Peppino run away and Vincenzo send his son Antonio to kill him!! At this point Agnese go to the police to try to stop the events. They all are taken to the court. But the events couldn't be stop, there is still space for a fake kidnapping! An happy end is still possible.