Ornella Muti Movies

In this Italian effort (spoken English is obviously dubbed) a dentist is seduced by his daughter and her girl friend. ~ All Movie Guide

Inspired by Lawrence Durrell's collection of interrelated novels, The Alexandria Quartet, Lucas Belvaux's trilogy--the violent noir On the Run, the romantic comedy An Amazing Couple, and the melodrama After the Life, examine many of the same characters from three distinct perspectives. In On the Run, taciturn leftist revolutionary Bruno (Belvaux) escapes from prison with the help of one of his former comrades. When his partner is killed by the police, Bruno tracks down another former member of his gang, Jeanne (Catherine Frot), who is now living a quiet, respectable life as a schoolteacher, with a husband and a young son. Bruno is determined to get revenge on the powerful man who betrayed his revolution. Jeanne doesn't want to live in the past. She offers Bruno enough help to get rid of him. Trying to trap his prey, Bruno follows a drug dealer who works for the man. He meets Agnes (Dominique Blanc), a junkie who happens to be the wife of the cop, Pascal (Gilbert Melki) who's hunting Bruno. Bruno ends up helping Agnes avoid the police and cop a fix. In return, she takes him to the vacation home of her co-worker, Cecile (Ornella Muti), where he hides out. But when his plans for revenge go horribly awry, Bruno turns to Jeanne again, and she has to weigh her family's safety against her allegiance to her old friend. While On the Run focuses on Bruno and Jeanne, An Amazing Couple is centered on the paranoid Cecile, who hires Pascal to watch her husband, while After the Life deals with the damaged marriage of Agnes and Pascal. The trilogy was shown at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

This provocative drama toys with notions of time and space on film as it presents the story of a woman who is suddenly abandoned by her lover and mentor, the famed Italian writer Emilio Flora who has been nominated for a Nobel Prize. For the past three years this man who is considerably older than the woman has devoted most of his time educating her in art, literature, and science, and love. Now that he is gone, the woman must try to understand why. She is the only character in the film which takes place in the little house they shared. Her only outside connections are with the telephone. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In a village rocked by an earthquake, one family struggles to make a new home for themselves while juggling a variety of personal crises. In a small town in Umbia, an earthquake devastates several neighborhoods, and Paolo Zerenghi (Marco Baliani), the city's deputy mayor, finds himself in charge when the mayor is discovered to be seriously injured. The Zerenghi home is also destroyed in the quake, and Paolo, his wife Stefania (Ornella Muti), and their two children are forced to live in a trailer until their house can be rebuilt -- a cramped situation made all the worse when the Zerenghis are forced to take in aging Mrs. Moccia (Ilaria Occhina) and her handsome son, Giovanni (Valerio Mastrandrea). Agostino (David Bracci), one of the Zerenghi siblings, notices that Stefania and Giovanni seem to be getting along unusually well, and with his parent's relationship showing the strain of Paolo's new responsibilities, he suspects his mother may be straying with the good-looking visitor. Young Agostino is also having romantic problems of his own, having developed a crush on two neighborhood girls, Vale (Margherita Porena) and Tina (Michela Moretti), and now having to choose between one or the other. While Domani is fictional, it was inspired by actual events after a massive earthquake hit the Umbia section of Italy in 1997. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The tenth in a series of made-for-TV movies based on stories from the Bible, this drama stars Louise Lombard as Esther, a common Jewish woman who rose to wealth and power when she captured the heart of the King of Persia. Eventually, Esther opted to use her influence to win freedom and a better life for her people. Esther also stars F. Murray Abraham as Mordecai, Jurgen Prochnow as Haman, Ornella Muti as Queen Vashti, and Thomas Kretschmann as King Ahasuerus. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Perhaps taking a cue from the popular 1970s Brit television comedy "Are You Being Served?," this Italian department store comedy is a series of skits involving customers and store personnel from several departments. In one skit, Elena (Laura Antonelli) and her husband the personnel director, are certain that an inept salesman in the bathroom fixtures department is actually the son of the store's owner. They launch into a campaign to woo him over without bothering to check up on his credentials. In another skit, the famous Italian actress Ornella Muti, playing herself, walks into one of the men's departments and sends a salesclerk into near heart failure. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Following up on his innovative work Timecode, which featured four stories being told in real time simultaneously, Mike Figgis returns to a modified form of his technique in this film about the tourists, the prostitutes, the tour guides, a killer, and a film crew who frequent the Hungarian Palace Hotel in Venice, Italy. A corrupt Eastern European politician and his moll are visiting the city to complete a shady business deal while Sophie is a high-priced call girl who makes an office in one of the hotel's suites. The film crew is attempting to shoot a Dogma 95-style adaptation of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi only to run into one problem after another. Magic is a professional assassin with a very odd kink -- he must have sex immediately after completing a job. Quintus, who abandoned his attempts to get fame and fortune as an actor, is a tour guide with an unusual secret. And then there is maid who not only has the skeleton key to the hotel, but also a habit of snooping. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

This Taming of the Shrew in Italian is also a take off on the 1970 French film L'ours et la Poupee, and showcases the popular singer/comedian Adriano Celentano as an irascible country farmer named Elia, who locks horns with Lisa (Ornella Muti), a gorgeous society snob. Elia is a notoriously obnoxious, confirmed bachelor. The story begins as Lisa finds herself seeking help at Elia's farmhouse when her car breaks down on a rainy night. Elia's maid (Edith Peters) has been after Elia to marry a good woman and when she opens the door to Lisa, the action starts to head toward fulfillment of the maid's wishes. Lisa's beauty is not only ignored by Elia right away, he also treats her quite rudely -- a new experience for her. So Lisa decides to "conquer" him simply because the challenge presents itself. Much to her chagrin, nothing she attempts has the expected effect on Elia, who remains miraculously impervious to her very obvious charms. When Lisa accepts defeat and leaves for Milan, Elia undergoes a change of heart. His slow reaction time only leads to a deeper and more intensive longing for Lisa, and the second half of the film is involved with their involvement. There is one final accomplishment waiting for Elia just before the ending that shows his interests have not been completely subverted to the new pursuit of love and its pleasures. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide