| Overview: | THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE is an ice cool, gripping, psychological thriller which screened In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It features a brilliant central appearance from Toni Servillo and is an impressive second feature from Italian director Paolo Sorrentino. Everyone harbours a dark secret. But it's obvious that Titta Di Girolamo (Toni Servillo) has more than one. Why else would a 50-year-old man from southern Italy choose to live for eight years in an anonymous hotel room in an anonymous town in Switzerland?
He seems to be a man without identity and with little to do, spending his time smoking and coldly observing the hotel's denizens, mostly the beautiful barmaid Sofia. A nullifying routine, he's constantly waiting for something daring to happen, but what is Titta's dark secret? And what is the story of the mysterious suitcases delivered to his door?
He once lost money owned by the mafia on the stock market and has been punished in a gruesome way: he is to deliver the mafia's money to the bank once a week and has no life for himself. Elegantly dressed he sits each day in the lobby of the hotel, smoking cigarettes with impeccable poise. He observes the hotel guests and especially the bartender, Sofia, (Olivia Magnani, granddaughter of Italy's famous actress Anna Magnani), but never acknowledges her attempts to be friendly. At night, he plays cards with the former hotel owners who lost the hotel to gambling, before he gets ready for another night without sleep. His detachment from the world is complete, until he does begin to communicate with Sofia - at this point his neatly organised world turns upside down.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE is a story about a man who discovers love too late in his life. On the level of film language, the film is constantly inventive, with Luca Bigazzi's sharply-defined photography mapping out the often empty spaces of Titta di Girolamo's world, and the highly atmospheric use of music.
|
tell us what you
