The Italian (aka Italianetz, 2005)

 

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

 

 

A very young six-year-old boy named Vanya discovers his mother is still alive and the Russian orphan runs away instead of being adopted by an Italian couple in Andrei Kravchuk’s The Italian (2005), a somewhat charming and entertaining, if somewhat predictable comedy/drama about Vanya’s journey against the real world to find his place in it.

 

The film is never pretentious and Andrei Romanov’s screenplay is always, smart, intelligent and keeps the film involving.  The key to making such a film work is in the casting of the young protagonist.  Young Kolya Spiridonov is remarkably good as Vanya, never overacting or seeming unconnected to events, though the rest of the cast is pretty good.  All in all, this is a very good film worth a look and it does not matter how many “true events” inspired it.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.66 X 1 image is softer than it should be for a new production, but Director of Photography Alexander Burov’s cinematography is very good and boy, does this deserve a Blu-ray.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is more like it, with much ambiance and dialogue, working well enough.  Alexander Knaifel’s score never gets in the way of the drama.  The only extra are previews for other Sony releases.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo