Marcelo Mazzarella Movies
Beginning in the late '90s -- when he narrated Raúl Ruiz's elephantine arthouse hit Time Regained (1999) -- Argentine actor Marcelo Mazzarella built a fairly substantial career tackling supporting roles and leads in international crossover successes of comparable weight. Projects included the 2000 urban drama Felicidades, a lead in the 2000 period drama Placido Rizzotto (as a union activist who ill-advisedly takes on the mafia), and another lead portrayal in Claudio Dabed's 2006 romantic comedy Pretending, as an insensitive, womanizing male chauvinist who unwittingly has the tables turned on him by a co-worker who isn't exactly what she seems. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide- 2007
Not to be confused with Kiumars Poorahmad's 2007 Iranian feature of the same title, Davide Marengo's Italian-language crime comedy Night Bus (2007) concerns a microchip with potentially damning evidence against a Polish magnate. An ex-secret service agent, Carlo Matera (Ennio Fantastichini), receives an enormous sum of cash from the fellow to bring the chip home, but it falls into the mitts of a cutthroat nightclub owner, Andrea (Ivan Franek). He is hustled, in turn, by the femme fatale at the story's center, Leila (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). She walks off with the dough, and must subsequently evade a host of seedy goons and thugs all clamoring for the funds, meanwhile attempting to use a gullible, gambling-addicted bus driver, Franz (Valerio Mastandrea), for a convenient, cross-country getaway. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Valerio Mastandrea, (more)
A sexy woman decides to find out what life is like for her less attractive sisters in this comedy from Chile. Amanda (Bárbara Mori) is a beautiful, intelligent, and talented woman who is trying to make a name for herself as an architect, but despite her seeming good fortune, Amanda is not happy with her life. Amanda's husband is chronically unfaithful to her, and her boss is by turns a bully and a weakling, and she begins to wonder if men disrespect her because of her good looks. Amanda puts this theory to the test when she leaves her husband and job behind and moves to a new town, where she takes the name Helene and disguises her face and figure with a padded suit, an ugly wig, dowdy makeup and crooked false teeth. Relying solely on her talent, Helene quickly gets a job at a small design firm whose boss Max (Jaime Azocar) is greatly impressed with her ideas for new buildings. One of Helene's new co-workers is Marcelo (Marcelo Mazarello), a shirt-chasing male chauvinist who initially pays no attention to the frumpy new employee. However, as they get to know one another, Marcelo finds he admires Helene's turn of mind and enjoys having a friendship with a woman for a change, though Amanda is appalled by his attitudes toward women -- so much that she hatches a plan to turn the tables on him by meeting him without her Helene disguise. Pretendiendo (aka Pretending) received its North American premiere at the 2006 Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bárbara Mori, Marcelo Mazzarella, (more)
A child born under religious persecution grows into a man who questions the foundations of faith in director Pasquale Scimeca's thought-provoking, faith-based drama. The year is 1492 and Castilian queen Isabel has ordered all Jews and Muslims out of Spain. When a boy named Joshua (Leonardo Cesare Abude) is born into the religious strife and is predicted by elder Don Issac (Toni Bertorelli) to be the new Messiah, Issac joins his exiled people in order to ensure safe passage for the boy. As the boy grows into a young man and follows his family to Naples, his questions about Jesus garner a wide variety of responses from his fellow Jewish and Muslim travelers. When the safe haven of Naples turns inhospitable and Joshua's family is forced to move on to Sicily, his subsequent fascination with Catholic rituals raises the ire of the local clergy. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
As a demolition crew prepares to raze the building that Beto Luna has worked in for forty years, the dedicated worker finds his fate becoming curiously intertwined with that of the desperate foreman whose job it is to ensure that the job gets carried out correctly. Beto is a man who has spent his entire career in a single building, and Osvaldo Lazzari is a demolition foreman whose gruff demeanor masks a deep-rooted emotional fragility. Osvaldo is paid under the table and has no insurance, and he knows that it's only a matter of time before his luck runs out. When Beto and Osvaldo cross paths, both men realize that their very lives may crumble right along with the building in question. Brought together by their mutual fears and dissatisfaction in life, these two lost souls attempt to find their way in life as the public gathers to protest the demolition. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Enrique Liporace, Jorge Paccini, (more)
- 2002
Italian director Marco S. Piccioni's Quello Che Cerchi (What Are You Looking For) takes a provate eye named Impero (Marcello Mazzarella) for a main character. He is burning out on life and his job when the wife of a married couple that used to be good friends with him hires Impero to spy on their son. The son has been having a difficult time ever sine his father successfully became a transsexual. While Impero and the son begin to develop a relationship, Impero begins to wonder if the young man might be his son. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcelo Mazzarella, Stefania Orsola Garello, (more)
- 2000
One man's fight against organized crime proves to have devastating consequences for himself and his loved ones in this drama from Italy. As a young man, Placido Rizzotto (Marcello Mazzarella) saw his father imprisoned by police for a crime he didn't commit, and as a teenager he had to contend with the brutal excesses of Mussolini's soldiers while fighting in World War II. These events have left Placido with little taste for petty tyranny and with a desire to promote social justice. Upon his return home from the war, Placido becomes increasingly aware that organized crime has taken hold of his village, and he becomes angry and frustrated as he sees Mafia leaders controlling local politics and taking whatever land or property they want. Placido helps to form a trade union as a challenge to the Mafia's authority, and attempts to organize the villagers into a collective to grow crops in the fields taken by gangsters from the people. Lia (Gioia Spaziani), Placido's girlfriend, admires his bravery, but doesn't believe he's aware of the danger he's put himself in as she urges him to stop his crusade against the crime families. Placido, however, becomes all too aware of how badly Lo Sciancato (Vincenzo Albanese), a local crime kingpin, wants to hurt him when he sends a handful of his goons to brutally beat and gang-rape Lia. Placido Rizzotto was based on a true story and features newsreel footage of some of the real-life figures who appear as characters in this film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcelo Mazzarella, Carmelo Di Mazzarelli, (more)
It's Christmas Eve in Buenos Aires and nothing seems to be going right. Some say that, for many, Christmas is the loneliest time of the year, and just as a hapless group of unsuspecting Argentineans feel they may have hit rock bottom, their lives begin to intersect in a way that may offer a glimmer of hope. As the holiday draws to a close, a failed comedian, a lonely doctor, a doubtful lover, and a desperate father attempt to struggle through their hardships while offering compassion and kindness to others during the holiday season. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gastón Pauls, Silke, (more)
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcelo Mazzarella, Emmanuelle Béart, (more)
