Massimo Ferrero Movies

Two couples straying from fidelity find themselves looking in the same direction in this comedy from Italy. Filippo (Alessandro Benvenuti) and Anna (Elena Sofia Ricci) are a married couple looking to spice up their relationship, and one night while they're drinking they spot Giulia (Micaela Ramazzotti), an attractive young woman. Filippo and Anna have never had a ménage à trois, but they're game to give it a try, and attempt to persuade Giulia to join them. However, Giulia is already making another marriage more interesting; she has been having an affair with Ugo (Ricky Tognazzi), who is not getting along with his wife Marcella (Giuppy Izzo). While Commedia Sexy does feature brief nudity, most of the sex is talked about rather than shown. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Veteran filmmaker Luigi Magni helms this gorgeously-photographed work set during the tumult of mid-19th century Rome. The film focuses on vivacious Cecilla (Lucrezia Lante Della Rovere), innkeeper and creator of renowned spaghetti, and on the Carbonari secret society that agitates against the Vatican for a unified Italy. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

An ambitious project of Chile-born, Paris-based Raul Ruiz, this psychological drama brings to the screen the famous classic of Marcel Proust with fidelity to its interior monologues and streams of consciousness. Proust (Marcelo Mazzarella), on his deathbed in his small apartment on Rue Hamelin, is looking through old photos and remembering his life, as real characters intermingle with fictional ones from his novels. The period is 1914-18, when WWI is raging. Hidden in Paris, thanks to his asthma, Marcel Proust wanders into the night. He finds an aging courtesan in Café de la Paix, which is deserted by the curfew. Charlus, the seducer of young boys, is at the Palais des Felicites where he meets his lovers. Gilberte returns alone to Tansonville to evade the confiscation of her chateau by the Germans after the death of her husband at the front. Famous violinist Morel is hiding in a decrepit hotel. The demoralizing effects of war affect all the characters, hastening their decadence or transforming them into caricatures. In the whirlpool of the grotesque specter of war, Marcel finds refuge in his childhood memories to escape the atrocities around him. Death and decadence, the evanescence of human existence, and the relations between space and time are some of the main themes explored in this film, which reflects the works of Marcel Proust in every detail. Raul Ruiz has on his side a very good screenwriter, Gilles Taurand, and an impressive cast: Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich, who have collaborated with Ruiz before, Emanuelle Béart, Vincent Pérez, Pascal Greggory, and the Italian man of theatre, Marcello Mazzarella. Shown in competition at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi