Marina Confalone Movies

Written and directed by Paolo Genovese, Incantesimo Napoletano ("A Neopolitan Spell") is a fanciful tale of the horror felt by a fifth-generation Neopolitan couple whose first daughter's first words are in Milanese. By the time Assunta (Chiara Papa) is 10-years-old, she has rejected her mother's cooking in favor of traditional Milanese food, and hasn't adopted any Neopolitan slang. Desperate, Assunta's father (Gianni Aiello) sends her off to a Neopolitan slum, where the dialect is so thick that the residents have a reputation for not being able to understand one another. Things don't go as planned, however, and a 20-year-old Assunta (Serena Improta) not only comes back speaking Milanese exclusively, but is pregnant from one of many sexual encounters. The clashing father and daughter eventually come to terms with one another, as told in flashback through an 80-year-old Assunta's (Clelia Bernacchi) perspective. Incantesimo Napoletano also features Marina Confalone and Tonino Taiuti. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

It is Christmas 1945 and somewhere in Naples a young boy (Andrea Refuto) waits with his mother (Giusi Saija) and a group of women for the return of his long-absent father. The boy's wandering attention gradually focuses on Rafilina (Mariagrazia Galasso), his family's teenaged maid, who is involved in an affair with a ne'er-do-well pool hall rat (Antonio Pennarella). First the young boy becomes an intermediary for the pair, then sabotages the entire relationship. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

Panni Sporchi is a satiric comedy from veteran director Mario Monicelli about the public and private squabbles of a family-owned cough drop company. The Razzi family's business has been the economic backbone of a small Northern Italian city for years, but when Amedo (Paolo Bonacelli), the aging head of the company, is fast-talked into financing an expensive commercial set in ancient Rome by his nephew Camillo (Francesco Guzzo), war breaks out among the family. Furio (Michele Placido), husband of Amedo's daughter (Mariangela Melato) and second in command of the company, is outraged at the cost of the spot and the bad publicity it receives; he's even more upset when Amedo drops dead and the inept Camillo is handed control of the business. Panni Sporchi stars several noted Italian comic actors, many of whom have worked with Monicelli before; the cast also includes Gigi Proietti and Ornella Muti. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A former terrorist from the early 1970s, who has totally suppressed the memory of the night in which she almost executed a man; encounters her intended victim a few years after the crime was committed. He, who wound up with a bullet lodged in his skull has never forgotten her, and so begins a complex, compelling Italian psychological drama that does not provide any simplistic answers to a situation that is difficult for both parties. The woman, Lisa Venturi was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to serve a 30-year sentence. Though she has only been in prison 12 years, she is given a chance to do work release during the day. It is on her way to work that she runs into Professor Sajevo, the man she tried to kill. He shows some interest in her, but she has no idea why. Soon the meetings become a strange unspoken ritual. Every day on her way to work, he manages to block her way. Finally she begins thinking he wants to court her and so begins fabricating a perfectly normal life. He meekly seems to buy every word, but eventually, he tells her the truth. Lisa is so deeply upset at having to face what she so carefully tried to hide from herself that she gives up her job and returns to the prison so she will not have to face him. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable, as by then both of them are pulled inexorably towards more communication about the situation and the ideology that threw them together in the first place. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The title of this movie refers to a typical Neapolitan shell-game in which a package of valuable merchandise is switched for something worthless while a brief diversion is used as a cover. This comic anthology is a survival guide to the mad, sometimes joyful anarchy of this ill-managed town, told in ten separate episodes. In one of the funniest, a woman swindled out of her apartment by a phony medium successfully uses his own superstitious belief that there are real mediums somewhere to get her apartment back. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

An off-beat, entertaining comedy about a married couples' ennui, this story has a special Italian flavor that others can savor as well. A husband and his wife (Riccardo Pazzaglia, also the director, and Simona Marchini) have become completely bored with each other after many, many routine years of marriage and raising their teenage son. They would like to get a divorce, but can't afford to pay rent separately, so their lawyers create a solution to their problem. They are to divide everything in the house in half, from the bed to the refrigerator, and live as though they really were separate. The headboard of the bed is sawed in half, the food in the fridge is divided, and so life apart but together begins. Problems constantly arise, until the two are forced to rethink and retrench. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Not quite reaching the standards of its predecessor Thus Spake Bellavista, this turn at the fount of Prof. Bellavista's wisdom has him and his variously inept followers trying to track down a murderer. While using the Prof's telescope to watch Halley's comet, the Bellavista coterie focuses on what appears to be a murder in a nearby apartment. Though Sherlock Holmes would shudder at their investigative techniques, at least the city of Naples is shown to good advantage. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Fontamara is a tiny Italian village during the Mussolini years. The deprivations of the War are hardly anything new to the citizens of Fontamara, since they've been in a state of poverty ever since the city was founded. Nonetheless, the townsfolk are supremely resourceful, and as such they tend to laugh off the progressive rantings of town "character" Michele Placido. When he tries to rally his neighbors against the fascist city officials, he is arrested on a trumped-up charge and is tortured to death in prison. A friend of Placido's, at last realizing the sagacity and sincerity of his buffoonish companion, takes it upon himself to carry on his fallen comrade's anti-fascist activities, making certain that the citizens of Fontamara are given all the facts concerning Placido's "accidental" demise. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi