colinTheBarSteward
A lovely, feelgood film that manages to avoid being twee through several flashes of that dry, dark, Danish sense of humour; as well as a willingness to look at life's realities square on, without overt sentimentality, but with a tentative optimism.For those familiar with Dogme '95 this is proof that it doesn't always have to be vaguely disturbing or downright shocking truths that the medium wrings out of its characters and situations - life isn't always that bleak. For those not familiar with Dogme, this film presents a warm and inviting pool in which one may dip one's toe comfortably.The six lead characters are three-dimensional and likable, including Lars Kaalund's Ramseyan restaurateur Halvfinn. The support is a little more exaggeratedly drawn, but still sympathetic for the most part. The plot is uncomplicated (no prizes for guessing the minor twists) but none the worse for that - part of the Dogme vow of chastity is to avoid the horrendously contrived plot twists favoured by Hollywood today over proper character development or story (you know the usual suspects).One to watch with (teenage) offspring, parents, partners, business partners, potential clients, complete strangers... in fact, just about anyone who's around.
Martin Bradley
Watching this superlative film from Denmark I kept thinking just how awful the American remake would be, (unless, of course, it was directed by someone like Thomas McCarthy or Tamara Jenkins). It's about a handful of lonely people in what, presumably, is a small community and whose lives intersect on a daily basis but who come to know each other more much intimately through the Italian class they attend every week. They are also linked by love and death; the death of parents and loved ones and the love which they find with each other. It's very funny and it's genuinely charming. If a major Hollywood studio were to do this I doubt if it would be either. But it is also honest and fairly uncompromising and it treats all the characters on screen with affection and with respect, something Hollywood seldom does.It's also superbly acted. This is a brilliant ensemble and there isn't a dud performance in sight; impossible, then, to single out one performance but these people live on long after the movie ends. It is also so well directed by Lone Scherfig that you simply forget there's someone behind the camera telling the actors what to do. Perhaps that's the real achievement of Dogme 95; you forget you're watching a movie and feel instead like you're visiting old friends.
clevelandrachel
Italian for Beginners is a superbly directed film in the stylistic tradition of Dogma 95 productions; an anonymous director, the on location sets, and the natural acting create a bare cinematography where the story begins in the very routine lives of six individuals from a small town in Denmark, whose lives intersect at church, in the restaurant, at the hotel and in school. The film quietly plucks these characters off the streets- out of their disparaged mundane environments- into a classroom in hopes of learning something new.Love begins in a neglected classroom, where the couples gather to learn Italian and experience a hope of something greater than their own misfortune. The comical harshness of the over-zealous Finn as their instructor foreshadow their determination to find something from these lessons as they repeat lines together about love and how to be in love. Finally the streets of Venice offer a rich reward for the couples who now have the opportunity to practice what they've learned. A low-lit restaurant in Venice offers new beginnings for the couples that share a very common meal but with a new hope for their lives together. The mundane, disparate, somber tone of the dogma is lifted into a beautiful cannon of what love can be.
Peter Hayes
Life in a dull Danish provincial town is only partly enlivened by an Italian night class.This is one of these newfangled movies ("Dogma" for those in the know) where the whole thing is captured on video camera, lighting is natural-and-available and all music has to come from a visible source on screen.Here we have camera work so wobbly that it looks like the cameraman has been taken by surprise by some of the action - either that for the director (Lone Sherfig) doesn't know the Danish phrases for "cut" or "let's go again - the cameraman wasn't ready!"We are in a Mike Leigh world of small people with flaws trying to make a life in difficult circumstances. There seems a lot of deaths, but in this grey world you can almost call them mercy killings!Finn is the marginal lead character (just ahead of the young new pastor) as he is both the coffee shop manager - for a while at least - and the stand-in Italian teacher after the original teacher has a heart attack in class. Given that he is fluent in Italian already you wonder why he needs to attend in the first place, but maybe it is the social scene that interest him?While you may knock the grade Z production values it tells a lot of truths. The main one is that life is nothing but a string of embarrassing moments played off against small moments of pleasure or diversion.
AD
