Peter Del Monte Movies
- 2007
A romance starts on a dangerous note in this drama from Italy. Teo (Marco Foschi) is a Jewish college student pursuing a graduate degree in astrophysics while trying to keep up with his girlfriend. One day, Teo is crossing the street when he's struck by a car driven by Mavi (Kasia Smutniak), a beautiful but flighty young woman from Croatia. When Mavi takes Teo to the hospital, he's immediately smitten with her, and while she warns him that she's poor material for a relationship, Teo isn't deterred in the least. Several years later, Teo and Mavi are married and the parents of a new baby, and while his folks are miffed that his bride isn't a Jew, they clearly love their grandchild. However, the demands of supporting the baby forces Teo to give up his career in science and become a textbook salesman; his new work means lots of travel, and a difficult relationship becomes all the more unstable as Mavi imagines Teo is chronically unfaithful while on the road. Nelle Tue Mani (aka In Your Hands) was the first feature film in seven years from writer and director Peter Del Monte. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kasia Smutniak, Marco Foschi, (more)
- 2000
Strained family ties add to the tension of a romantic triangle in this downbeat drama from Italy. Nina (Valeria Golino) is an emotionally unstable actress who can't figure out how to get her life in order and who frightens away almost any man who comes near her, including her former husband and her son. Clara (Margherita Buy) is a psychiatrist working in a mental hospital who has little going on in her life but her work. Nina and Clara have practically nothing in common except two things -- they're sisters, and both are in love with Leo (Ennio Fantastichini), an orderly at a hospital. Leo is fond of Nina, but when she leaves town without warning, he's upset at being unable to find her. Leo instead tracks down Clara, and she soon finds herself attracted to the warm, good-natured stranger. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margherita Buy, Ennio Fantastichini, (more)
- 1998
Peter Del Monte directed this Italian drama about Polish immigrants in Rome, adapted from E. Albinati's novel, The Polish Car Window Cleaner. When Janusz (Romuald Andrzej Klos) arrives in Rome with his family, they seek employment while awaiting visas to travel on to Canada. The men in the family clean windshields of vehicles stuck in Rome's massive traffic jams. Attractive daughter Justyna (Agata Buzek), who takes care of an ill child, has a run-in with rapists. Janusz mysteriously vanishes, and his son Rafal (Kim Rossi Stuart) fears he is dead. Janusz' demented brother Zygmunt (Olek Mincer) begins to wander about the city. Janusz is on the brink of happiness with a beautiful Bulgarian, Irina (Eljana Nikolova Popova), when a botched robbery results in his being charged with murder. Shown at the 1998 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Olek Mincer, Agata Buzek, (more)
This is a movie about walls, no not physical walls of wood and stone, but the psychological walls that protect and ultimately imprison certain souls, effectively isolating them from the most teeming crowds. 19-year-old Cora's are walls of anger that keep her militantly aloof from the world around her. The much-older Cosimo's walls are harder to define. Suffering from debilitating bouts of forgetfulness, he lives in a whimsical world, wandering whenever the urge strikes him. His wanderlust greatly worries his daughter Ada, herself trying to surmount the fences erected between her husband and herself as they try to deal with Cosimo. She hires Cora to surreptitiously watch Cosimo and to keep him from harm. At first Cora is content to quietly trail the oblivious Cosimo on his daily jaunts around the city, but as time passes she finds herself drawing inexorably nearer to the old man. One day Cosimo just gets on a train and randomly visits numerous towns with Cora forced to follow. Eventually they end up in the country where Cora shows that she is not as hard and cynical as she seems. She then informs Ada of her father's latest escapades, but eventually Cora comes to accept the professor as he is and in so doing finds new insight about herself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1990
In this evidently experimental, episodic film, moments in the lives of a disparate group of people who love or make love to one another are screened. Some of these scenes are filled with whimsey, others are tragic. In one of them, a girl develops an obsession with the transplant recipient of her dead lover's heart. In another, a woman struggles to break off an unhappy romance. In yet another, a mischievous wealthy woman helps a shoplifter escape from a store she has stolen from. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Etoile (Star) is a surrealistic Italian tale of soul transmigration. An American ballerina (Jennifer Connelly) is the prize pupil of a prestigious Italian instructor. The dance school she attends was 100 years earlier the domain of one of Europe's greatest ballerinas. But the ballerina was killed in a carriage accident, and it is said that her soul haunts the school, awaiting a new body to possess. Charles Durning co-stars in Etoile as Connelly's effusive Uncle Joshua. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1987
- R
Giulia E Guilia, also released as Julia and Julia, is an unusual, interesting film by director Peter Del Monte, a nightmare vision of a world where nothing can be counted on and where truth is relative. The plot unfolds as a series of surprises, the first surprise being central to the entire plot. The story begins on Julia's (Kathleen Turner) wedding day when she is to be married to her Paolo (Gabriel Byrne). After the wedding, Julia and her new husband are involved in a car accident. From then on, the construction of the story, both clever and perverse, defies explanation, with an inner logic of its own. Julia finds that she can be sure of nothing nor can the viewer. This is both the strength and basic flaw of the movie. The movie will fascinate some viewers while confusing others. Nevertheless, the movie is a superb directorial achievement by Monte, making his English language debut. It should also be noted that this is the first feature shot entirely in high definition television technique and then transferred to film, with generally excellent results. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kathleen Turner, Sting, (more)
- 1985
The Italian childhood fantasy Little Flames (Piccoli Fuochi) concerns 5-year-old Dino Jakosic. Proving too much for his parents, Jakosic is often sent to his room, where he interacts with several bizarre "imaginary" playmates who bedevil the servants with their sadistic pranks (the audience is never certain whether the playmates are real or whether the boy is pulling off the pranks himself). Valeria Golino plays the family's new maid, whom Jakosic takes a liking to. He begs his playmates to leave Golino alone, but out of jealousy they plan an awful revenge on the poor woman. In a startling sequence, Golino's boyfriend is tied to a bed and set afire. Jakosic confesses to the murder (indeed, as mentioned, he may have done it), but no one believes him capable of so horrible an act. Little Flames does not so much end as stop abruptly, with Jakosic bidding his playmates goodbye after they've wreaked their last havoc. Be sure not to book this one for your kid's next birthday party. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dino Jakosic, Valeria Golino, (more)
- 1982
- R
After his twin sister is killed in an accident, her distraught brother (Laurent Malet) jams her corpse in a cello case and hits the road. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurent Malet, Nina Scott, (more)
- 1981
In this drama, a 12-year-old boy impregnates a young girl and then decides to raise the child all alone. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Luca Porro, Fabio Peraboni, (more)
- 1980
There could be no more disparate people than Olga (Francesca deSapio), temporarily separated from her husband, and Regina (Fantu Mengasha), her Ethiopian maid and nanny. Although from different social and ethnic groups, Olga and Regina eventually become friends and help each other out in times of need. Regina keeps Olga's two feet firmly planted on the ground when she is ready to whirl out of orbit with an oddball mother, a husband who wants to be back with her, and a lover. And Olga returns the favor to Regina, helping her find her brother in some of the seedier sides of Rome. Their friendship is challenged when Olga's husband returns to live at home, and Regina is dismissed. Their relationship does not end there, as Regina turns up some time later, pregnant and in need of Olga's help. The time has come to test the depth of their friendship. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francesca de Sapio, Edmund Purdom, (more)
- 1969
A minimalist cinematic style is used in this film to tell the story of a young man who reacquaints himself with an old girlfriend after a chance meeting. He talks to a film director who wishes to make a feature about political change but is uninspired about the lack of real change in everyday life. The woman goes on a boat with an old friend before making love to her former boyfriend. The two rekindle their passions as the passage of time has them viewing each other in a more favorable light. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicole Tessier, Bruno Cattaneo, (more)
