Eliana Miglio Movies

The insidious emergence of state-sanctioned anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy sets the stage for this historical drama. In 1938, Umberto (Diego Abatantuono) is a tailor who is beginning to lose business to Leone (Sergio Castellito), a haberdasher whose shop is next door to Umberto's. Leone offers stock much like Umberto's and at lower prices, which has brought plenty of customers into his store, causing Umberto no small amount of annoyance. Umberto's ire is hardly soothed by the fact that his teenage son Paolo (Elio Germano) is dating Leone's daughter, Susanna (Gioia Spaziani), or that the two men's younger sons, Pietruccio (Walter Dragonetti) and Lele (Simone Ascani), are best friends. The rivalry between the two shopkeepers eventually leads to a heated public argument, in which Umberto refers to Leone's Jewish faith in a derogatory manner. A policeman overhears this, and Leone, who had previously been quiet about his Jewish heritage, soon finds himself having to deal with the sanctions being levied against Jewish citizens. As Umberto sees his neighbor slowly stripped of his property, his rights, and his dignity, his anger turns to sympathy and to a wish that he could do something to help a man not so different from himself. Concorrenza Sleale was directed by Ettore Scola, who previously examined Italy during Mussolini's rule in Una Giornata Speciale. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This Italian film explores the terrible effects of dishonesty and graft on Italy. The work does not follow a traditional plot, but instead follows the characters as they give their opinions about the state of Italy. A large part of the film focuses upon Costanza, a landlady who cannot through out her dead-beat tenant Cecilia because she has not legally declared the rent she receives as income. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In 1980, an Italian airliner was shot down accidentally by a poorly targeted NATO missile. At the request of Western governments, the Italian government covered up the incident. The persistence of the reporter Andrea Purgatori broke through the wall of silence surrounding the incident and enabled the processes of democracy, however flawed, to work freely once more. This political thriller is based on that incident and follows the reporter in his quest to piece together the unwelcome information and get this story out to the public. This movie was so popular that its title became a byword in modern Italian: now, whenever the truth is obviously being hidden, it is spoken of as being guarded by Il Muro di Gomma, a rubber wall. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide