At almost ninety years and with more than fifty films, Pupi Avati does not stop. Today, 30 April, the director returns once again to the theatres with Nel tepore del ballo, return to the contemporary drama after the horror of the American garden and fifth films of these years ’20. Is it worth going to see or better recover the director’s historical titles? Let’s find out.
Nel tepore del ballo: un dramma di mezza età
There is no living room in Italy that does not know Gianni Riccio. Conductor and television personality, rich, loved, desired. This at least until doubtful investments made twenty years ago do not lead him to be implicated for recycling, worth a short stay in prison and a media tracollo. Back in his native Jesolo, the man finds himself in contact with the many faces of his past: from the troubled childhood in the shadow of the mysterious “Mister”, his father, to the ambition of youth that made his first marriage naufragare and brought him on TV. And it is precisely in reuniting his first wife Clara that Gianni finds himself deciding what to do with his future, whether to continue to be the Riccio that everyone knows or whether to look for something different, old and new at the same time.
Fra ombrelloni e riflettori
In the dance theorem is a strange film, at the same time familiar and strange. The familiarity comes from its ability to build a deeply Italian texture, made of aesthetic-cultural microelements (from the appearance of the winter province to the way in which the lights of the studios of public TV fall on aptympas and ceronates) that manage to touch the dusty and visceral strings of our collective sensibility. Under this excellent point of view the work of the whole technical department, from room to, above all, art department and set design.
This mnemonic-sensory waltz is not enough. In the prom’s theorem is a film with a delicate narrative, but it can’t convince completely of not being superfluous. Why spend an hour and a half watching Massimo Ghini melancholy? Why devote a significant percentage of minutage to flashbacks on Raul Bova that raise to the film more than they give it? A bit like the television that criticizes, the film is not particularly incisive and dramatically messed up. We only recommend it to those who want a nostalgia injection.
Il cast
Massimo Ghini is Gianni Riccio, an ambitious television host with a painful family history. Isabella Ferrari is Clara, Gianni’s wife in the first marriage unscathed because of his career. Lina Sastri is the sister of the “Mister” the charismatic father of Gianni (played by Raul Bova) and aunt of Gianni, who remained in Jesolo to take care of the family establishment, while Sebastiano Somma plays Morè, friend and collaborator of the host. Finally, Giuliana De Sio is “La morte”, waited for television conductor always on the crest of the wave that shared decades of career with Riccio, in the same corridors in which Bruno Vespa and Jerry Calà appear in the roles of themselves.
The article In the dance theorem: Pupi Avati is italoconfuso — The review comes from Dituttounpop.it.
