Gabriele Lavia Movies

A young man struggles to hold on to his life with his family against the judgment of those who want to help him in this drama from Italy. Salvatore (Allesandro Mallia) is a thirteen-year-old who has become the primary breadwinner in his family after the unexpected death of his parents. Salvatore has a younger sister and a grandmother to look after, and while at first he tried to juggle school with the fishing and tomato farming that kept the family fed and the bills paid, the youngster has abandoned his studies, at least for the meantime, in the interest of keeping the household together. Salvatore's truancy draws the attention of Laura Valvo (Galatea Ranzi), a social worker who becomes aware of his situation. Laura wants to place Salvatore with a foster family and apply to a Catholic charity to help look after his sister and grandmother, but Salvatore will have no part of this. As Salvatore struggles to keep his family together, he's helped by a most unlikely ally -- Marco Brioni (Enrico Lo Verso), the teacher whose classroom he abandoned to help his relations. Salvatore -- Questa E'La Vita was the first feature film from director Gian Paolo Cugno. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

On the 1st of January in 1900, Danny Boodmann (Bill Nunn), the mechanic of the transatlantic liner Virginian bound for America, finds an abandoned baby on board and decides to keep him. Nicknamed Novecento (1900), the boy grows up on the ship hidden from everyone. His presence is revealed when Danny dies in an accident. The young '1900' manages to hide again despite threats from the captain. Discovering a passion for music, he teaches himself to play the piano without being able to read the notes, and he soon becomes a virtuoso whose reputation spreads beyond the confines of the ship. Even the famous jazz piano player, Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III), gets on board for a challenge because he has heard rumors about the greatest piano player in the world living on a ship. The story is told by Max Tooney, Novocento's old trumpeter friend, who reminisces about the incredible pianist who never set foot on land. After two films about cinema, Giuseppe Tornatore comes up with the story of a highly imaginative artist who lives only for and through his art. Tornatore was inspired by a theatre monologue written in 1994 by Alessandro Baricco, and the film was shot partly in Odessa, on a sixty-year-old Russian freighter, and partly in the Cinecitta studios in Rome. Tim Roth's performance as the talented but reserved Novocento is remarkable, and the music of Ennio Morricone plays a vital role in the film. La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano, which was retitled The Legend of 1900 for US distribution after forty-five minutes have been cut, was originally two hours and forty minutes when it was shown to great success in Italy in autumn of 1998. The US version had its world premiere at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

akIn this softcore drama, Manuel (Gabriele Lavia) is a hitman who gets rid of a list of names (he thinks) and kills off the man contracted to kill him, then hops a plane to Italy. He lands in a high-class bordello that houses not only professional hookers but part-time prostitutes whose lives outside the brothel are seemingly quite respectable. One of these women is Vittoria (Monica Guerritore) a stunning housewife who entrances and seduces Manuel until she almost holds complete sway over him. The problem is that Manuel is still sought by the men out to kill him and this dalliance could threaten his cover. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Director Gabriele Lavia has stayed close to his stage production of Heinrich von Kleist's play Prinz Friedrich von Homburg in this story of a prince who must choose between his ideals and death. The romantic villas, gardens, fountains, and the prince set the tone for a conflict between remaining true to one's beliefs, or not. The prince daydreams and sleepwalks, and in one somnambulist excursion he meets the beautiful Natalie d'Orange, the niece of his commander in the army, the Prince Elector. When Prince Friedrich is engaged in battle soon after, he charges the enemy ahead of time and because of the element of surprise, wins the battle. Nevertheless, he disobeyed the orders of the Prince Elector -- and so is sentenced to die unless he can maintain that a soldier has the right to disobey orders. Meanwhile, Natalie goes to her uncle to beg for the life of the man she loves -- and it is her passion, and the love the prince feels for her -- that just might carry the day. Director Marco Bellocchio came out with another cinematic version of Kleist's play in 1997. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

A combination of alchemy, architecture, and horror, director Dario Argento's Inferno is a pulsing thriller filled with murder and supernatural mayhem. The peculiar proceedings are set into motion in both New York and Rome when two young women, Sara (Eleonora Giorgi) and Rose (Irene Miracle), find a book called The Three Mothers, a tome of alchemy written by an architect named Varelli. According to the book, Varelli built a trio of resting places for the Three Mothers, an evil trio whose identities remain at the core of the film's mystery. Rose's brother and Sara's boyfriend is Mark (Leigh McCloskey), a music student in Rome who jets to New York after Sara is murdered and Rose disappears. He follows up Rose's research on The Three Mothers and, with the help of his sister's neighbor, Elise (Daria Nicolodi), comes to the realization that the building they are in is one of Varelli's. Along the way, Mark encounters a variety of quirky characters including Elise's butler (Leopoldo Mastelloni), the building's maid (Alida Valli), a cat-hating bookseller named Kazanian (Sacha Pitoeff), and the infirm Professor Arnold (Feodor Chaliapin) and his nurse (Veronica Lazar). After a series of murders and a revelation that the butler and the maid have been plotting to steal Elise's jewels, Mark discovers a secret series of passages within the building. They lead him to its core where he finds the wheelchair-bound Professor Arnold, who explains that he is really the architect Varelli. After a violent struggle, the dying old man confesses to Mark that he is merely a servant to the Mothers. The building begins to burn out of control, but before Mark can escape, he discovers the shocking identity of the Three Mothers. ~ Patrick Legare, Rovi

In this psychological melodrama, a nun becomes obsessed with purifying the souls of those dwelling in her hostel-convent. The guests, who inevitably become entangled with one another, include, a reproachable Polish priest and Nazi collaborator, a murderous widow, and a reporter who has come to do a story on the priest. Tragedy ensues and moral corruption abounds until the end, when they realize that the nun was right all along. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi