C of Corals: Unscrewing the stars

From a movie about death and destruction in space, to one centring around an undying Italian love, I've made a bit of a jump in terms of my film choices over the past 24 hours. Surprisingly, or maybe not since it does sound a bit fluffy, the quotation I've adapted for my title comes from the latter of the two. It's actually from a rather romantic speech in the film "La Tigre e la Neve" (or "The Tiger and the Snow" in English). Since I'm studying Italian, I've been trying to give myself some sort of practice over the summer, and I find that film and music are two of the easiest and most accessible ways to do that.

I had mixed hopes for this particular film; I knew that it was written and directed by (and also starred) Roberto Benigni, whom you may know from the extremely moving WWII film "La Vita è Bella." However, after bringing the DVD home from the library (yes, I am that cool that I rent foreign films from the public library), I read a few reviews of the film online (something I maybe should have done as a peremptory measure) and to put it simply, none of them were positive. "Oh well," I thought, "Italian is Italian, and I need the practice." Boy, am I glad I gave this one a chance. To me, the film was everything a film should be. It was topical without smacking you over the head with irate humanitarian insistence. It was touching without giving you that nearly sick-to-your-stomach feeling a glossy Hollywood rom-com might leave you with. Finally, it was funny. That classic Benigni humour had a wonderful way of tying together the other two big characteristics. His role as Attilio de Giovanni had that sort of quirky sweetness so typical of his characters, but so fresh and genuine that it just dazzles you.

Since I'm hoping this positive review leaves us all in a good place ("spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically". . . who can resist quoting Captain Jack Sparrow?), I thought I would tack a FOTD onto this post. So, this is what my face looked like on the way to see Prometheus last night. If only I had looked so calm and happy throughout, but I rather doubt that! I feel like, for the next little while at least, I'm going to stick in the much more comfortable realm of Italian romance and dream of "unscrewing the stars" rather than travelling to them and being viciously destroyed by aliens. On that note, ciao i miei amici!