Lamerica

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Film: B-

 

 

When is Capitalism bad?  As it more or less overtakes countries of the world where Communist and Socialism have become played out, the specter of Fascism still haunts the future and all this surfaces in the story of investors whose plans do not quite work out in Gianni Amelio’s Lamerica.  Taking place in 1994, roughly the year of the films release, Gino (Enrico Lo Verso) and Fiore (Michele Placido) arrive in Albania to set up business in what they think will be a sure and easy thing.  When they decide to exploit 50-year-old political prisoner Spiro (Carmelo Di Mazzarelli), the plan backfires, beginning with his disappearance.

 

It gets worse when Gino goes it alone and finds him, which gets him into all new trouble, starting with the loss of his comparatively fancy Jeep-like Suzuki Samurai.  Then Spiro’s near-nomad status (are his papers fake or authentic; is he Italian or Albanian?) becomes more of a problem and Gino starts to lose credibility and his own identity when his exploitation catches up with him.

 

Many are outright stunned and amazed by this film, and although I thought it was not bad, it tended to cover territory we have seen before.  Within the film itself, it does a good job of capturing the experience of being poor and adrift, but the problem is that it does go anywhere with it and that is a problem.  The box states that it “upstages” Bernardo Bertolucci and Roberto Rossellini at their Italian Neorealist best, but the result is actually a less naturalistic version of the portrayal of poverty and if the film is squarely blaming Capitalism for all the world’s ills, it is ill-advised.  Noting the fascist past and its damage helps, but the film avoids ideology for effect too much, and that is part of its undoing.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot with real anamorphic Technovision lenses and despite having problems with its dark shots, is a good looking film.  Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (The Way We Laughed) is a great cameraman and brings the film up to a higher level.  There is some softness throughout, but it is not as distracting as it might otherwise be.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surrounds and nicely represents the original Dolby A-type analog theatrical sound.  Franco Piersanti’s score is also effective.

 

Extras include two deleted scenes that oddly do not have an English translation and had a great problem upon playback to read the director’s English text comments.   26 stills that make up a “photo album”, 6 stills for a separate “poster gallery”, two theatrical trailers and an alternate ending that is more effective than the version in the final cut of the film offered here.

 

Bigazzi, Amelio and Lo Verso did reunite for The Way We Laughed, covered elsewhere on this site.  I may have liked that one marginally better, but they are both decent works that make me want to see more of all their work.  Lamerica has limits, but is worth a look.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo