Italian for Beginners

Amazon.com

Not your usual lighthearted romance, Lone Sherfig's heartwarming comedy warms the usually chilly Dogme 95 world of prickly eccentrics and damaged souls with a glowing sense of hope and passion. A belligerent restaurant manager, a repressed hotelier, a lonely hairdresser, and a clumsy, childlike bakery clerk are among the lonely thirtysomethings who escape the social disasters and comic chaos of their unfulfilled lives in an Italian-language evening course. It becomes a place to dream and to heal emotional wounds (and they have more than their fair share of scars). Sherfig manages to turn the familiar social landscape of films as The Celebration and The King Is Alive--fractured families, abusive parents, tragic pasts--into a backdrop for romantic comedy. If not exactly profound, Italian for Beginners remains a sweet, hopeful, and affirming tale of eccentrics who find friendship, family, and romance while learning the language of love. --Sean Axmaker

Description

An unforgettable romantic comedy that's earned overwhelming acclaim, ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS is a warm and playful story about seven perfect strangers and the shared journey of discovery that changes each of their lives! In a small, rainy suburb, a mismatched collection of opposites have signed up for an Italian class in hopes of spicing up their lives! Then, as they realize the class offers them more than just language lessons, they join together on a quest to Italy with the renewed desire to pursue the romances of their lives! Once there, these world-weary students who thought there was nothing left to learn from life will get an education that will change everything they know about love!

Customer Reviews:

Unprepared for Life.......2007-09-11

This movie answers the question: Why is the Scandinavian suicide rate so high? It's because they are unprepared to live. Bewildered and apathetic as [more or less] young and filled with hate and rage as they age, what have they got to live for? Perhaps this chilling indictment of their society by the makers was unintentional, but chilling it is.

That said, this is a barely interesting ramble thru the lives of a bunch of people with nothing to live for, and just as engrossing as you might think. I guess the makers wanted us to feel a bit more hopeful, but by the time they got the cast to Italy, the despair of these stunted lives had just become more elaborate, hardly more hopeful. I thought the script was quite poor, the acting [except for the defrocked priest, who appeared to be in an entirely different movie] was bland. Not heading to Denmark any time soon!

Interesting and deep.......2007-01-04

Given the low-budget ethos of this film, it succeeds in being interesting and deep, in terms of social relationships and social issues. Rather than the heavy musical cues and editing that guide us through a Hollywood movie, this film takes us gently and realistically into the lives of 6 people who try to work out their problems by interacting with others, some of whom just happen to be in the local council Italian class.

We get a realistic view of Dutch society in this film, along with the problems that people in that society encounter. This sort of everyday cultural information does not appear in the usual cinema event. As the problems develop into temporary solutions, we get close to the characters, and identify them as normal people, looking for understanding and companionship.

The Italian lessons are a link rather than a major part of the film. They are the almost accidental meeting point of the characters, and lead to the visit to Vienna which occurs at the end. In this setting, solutions appear, and we leave the characters in peace.

As with many comedies, this film has a deeper social message about the lives and conditions of the participants. It's nice to join them in an investigation of the human condition that is not dictated by heavyweight stars and huge, commercially-financed budgets.

Truly splendid.......2006-04-05

I was lukewarm towards this movie in Movie Festival few years back because it's a Danish movie (Danish and Italians are simply mutually exclusive, in my humble opinion) and secondly, it's a Dogme movie: the kind of projects that are stripped to the bare essentials and the movies are to be seen on their artistic merits and not because of "noises" such as SFX, sound, clever editing and so forth. Therefore, excellence was emphasised upon the talent and courage of the actors and actresses. At times, art movies were not cohesive and that they were there to shock, to challenge, to conjure an experience for the viewers. After much consideration, I flagged it until few days ago, when I decided to give it a chance. It's quite surreal to see a movie that's made using cam-cameras and that it felt documentary-ish. Somehow, it pulled off neatly. The movie started in fractures: a clumsy baker who tended to an abusive father, a lonely hairdresser that got bothered by her alcoholic mother, a new priest who started a congregation whose wife had just died (of horrible circumstance), a restaurant owner that had a chip on his shoulder, a dull but good-natured hotel manager that was looking for his elusive other half, and Guiliana (the Italian girl). Whilst their lives were less than fulfilled, they found solace and comfort in their Italian class. As it progressed, they also found friendship, strength and encouragement from that tight-knit group. Guiliana, the Italian girl seemed to be a metaphor to have all those characters intertwined and the finale ended appropriately at Italy, at the doorsteps of Venice as they ridded of their demons. Yes, I got a huge grin on my face with a huge sigh of satisfaction. It's really that good. It's been long time coming to have a movie that unfolded slowly and yet, so effective. There's a short story in the extras, references (CV)of the main actors and actresses, and other standard technical stuff. For those that could understand Danish language, there were additional extras for you! An experience of a lifetime! Buon Appetito

They Are Beginning to Discover Love!.......2005-08-24

"Italian for Beginners" (2000) is a very good and strange movie.
When I rented this VHS, I was convinced that I will see a comedy. So the critics said, the advertising and even the reviews in different web pages state it.
Well, I disagree.
This film is enticing, stirring, endearing... whatever, but comedy?
The story is about six people.
There is a young pastor stepping into a parish to temporarily substitute an obstinate and aggressive suspended titular; a good looking mid-thirty hairstylist with an intruding alcoholic mother; a pleasant hotel receptionist and his friend, usually angry, in charge of a bar; a lovely Italian kitchen-maid and last but not least a blundering young bakery employee.
This six go around with their lives in a little Danish town and will be, little by little, entangled one with the other.
All of them bear an internal pain or lose, all of them are in deep need of affection and care, all of them will discover love by strange and tangled paths.
There are comic moments in the film but nearly all of them are shadowed by some mishap, including death.

Director Lone Scherfig adheres to Dogma95 ascetic principles: no musical score, natural light, hand-held cameras are three of the ten premises; working within this background she manages to deliver a small oeuvre d'art that will leave the viewer deeply moved.

The cast, unknown actors and actresses for me, give an above standard performance. Believable and sober all of them flesh their characters with great compromise.
I strongly recommend this film!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

the goal: a trip to venezia, the city of the lovers ..........2005-07-05

six people shoveling to become free - killing the oppression made of job-trouble or obligations to parents. how to come out the shells, forget uneasiness, blow up the chains of tatooed behaviour? it's the only way to build a bridge to a helping hand. the choleric, aggressive waiter of a soccer restaurant, hal finn, becomes soft under the hair-washing hands of carmen. carmen first has to give an overdose morphine to her suffering mother, before the hairdresser gets free for a new love. the shy white-collar hotel-employee jørgen mortesen enormously jumps over the shades of his timidity, making a proposal of marriage to giulia, the vivid italian waitress, ignoring all (only danish?) social boundary-lines. pastor andreas, carrying a job, who is not adequately functioning, first needs a maserati to make compensation to his vulnerable self-reliance. in a second step he discovers more satisfaction in helping (and loving) the clumsy, nearly illiterate baker's assistant olympia. though the movie starts with obstructive parents and surrealistic funeral scenes, with strangeling jobs and a loneliness, no one seems to have the capability to scare away - all the six persons converge in an italian-language evening-class - and they change to the sunny side of the street, helping each other to reach that goal: a trip to venezia, the city of the lovers ...

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