Umberto Orsini Movies

Primo Levi's harrowing memoir If This Is a Man appeared in the U.S. in 1959 as Survival in Auschwitz; historians now regard it as the most critically important written conveyance of the horrors within the Nazi concentration camps. But the account in that text only represents half of Levi's story. The other half began after his release from Auschwitz. Instead of simply returning to his native Turin, Levi and 600 others were forcibly shipped east -- thousands of miles away from their homes. Thus began a grueling, trans-national journey that Levi undertook, across war-ravaged Europe and back to Turin -- a journey that took all of 12 months to complete, and that filled him, alternately, with incredulity, anger, wonder, and astonishment -- as he reflected on the meaning of his own survival in the camps. Levi died in 1987; as a tribute to the belletrist and historian, acclaimed nonfiction filmmaker Davide Ferrario (Far from Rome, Borderline) retraces Levi's route with his cameras in his documentary Primo Levi's Journey. Ferrario travels through Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Romania, Hungary, Germany, and south to his native country, evaluating, at each stop, the sociological climate and the various ways in which Eastern Europe has alternately evolved and remained static over the prior 60 years. Ferrario touches on numerous issues relevant to the contemporary sociopolitical landscape of Eastern Europe, as the Russian satellite countries struggle to develop national identities, and concurrently reflects on the experiences of Levi's original trip. Celebrated Polish filmmaker Andrezj Wajda appears early on and serves as a "tour guide" for one of the first legs of the voyage. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A woman makes the painful discovery that her family is not all that she believed it to be in the drama L'Ospite/The Guest. Giulia (Elodie Treccani) works for her father's law film and still lives in her parents' luxurious home. However, she soon realizes the young man from Thailand who is their new houseguest is not just a family friend -- he is Guilia's mother's lover, and almost half her age. Father, however, has an even bigger secret -- he's been having an affair with a man young enough to be his son. L'Ospite/The Guest was the feature debut from director Alessandro Colizzi and was shown at in the Forum section of the 1999 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The journey in this road movie begins in Sicily as Giovanni (Roberto De Francesco) heads for compulsory military service in Bolzano, near the Austrian border, although his cousin (Renato Carpentieri) wants him to skip out on military service so they can go into business together in Australia. Arriving early in Bolzano, Giovanni meets Loredana (Chiara Caselli) and follows her to Cortina where he runs out of money. His odyssey through life, love and friendships continues as he pushes onward through Tuscany, Rome, and Venice, eventually finding a freighter headed for Australia. Shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival, this film is also known as Five Stormy Days. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

This suspenseful French thriller examines the actions of a predatory woman who must eventually face the consequences of her actions. It is the final film of writer/director Christopher Frank, released after his death. Julien is a self-confident executive working at a Paris debt collection company. Julien impetuously invites Angela to dinner after his wife Anna and his son go on vacation. Angela is aggressive and wants to have sex with Julien. He does not rise to her bait. Angered, Angela leaves little reminders behind so that Anna will know she was there. Soon Angela moves into the same building as the couple. She becomes Anne's baby-sitter and begins doing everything she can to make it seem as if she and Julien are having an affair. The effect is not lost on Anne who begins to doubt her husband. Angela confronts Julien at the site of a building renovation. Julien hits Angela in the head with a shovel and kills her. He conceals her body in a hollow wall, then buys and moves into the apartment where it is hidden. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The most powerful officers of a bank are implicated in a financial scandal, despite their efforts to disassociate themselves from it. When the top brass fire Henri Rainier (Jean-Louis Trintignant) because one of his clients has been accused of fraud, he doesn't take it lying down. He knows that the man who actually approved the client's loans was the bank's director. He must expose these and other shady financial transactions by his superiors in order to avoid being framed by them. This straightforward drama, which depicts the anxious situation of a man without allies, caught, despite his best efforts, in the throes of a vast land fraud, is based on a true story and was inexplicably very popular in France. It won Césars for "Best Screenplay" and "Best Director," and the Prix Louis Delluc, a venerable annual prize given by French journalists for the best French film of the year. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A misguided attempt to dramatize the psychological triad formed by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (Erland Josephson), his Jewish friend Paul Rees (Robert Powell), and a Russian girl named Lou Von Salome (Dominique Sanda), this overbearing drama fails mightily. Nietzsche is portrayed as a jealous sociopath who drives Rees to suicide, and director Liliana Cavani cannot resist including a drug-hallucination ballet about Good and Evil which approaches the excesses of her controversial Il Portiere di Notte in its melodramatic sexual hysteria. Cavani's film is feverish where it should have been calculating and lurid where it should have been provocative. The result may be the first exploitation film aimed at philosophy students, and even deft supporting turns by Virna Lisi and Philippe Leroy cannot make the dialogue -- drawn hamfistedly from Nietzsche's own writings -- any less ridiculous. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Social classes and different cultures collide as three disparate men try to court a wealthy young woman (Romy Schneider) in this French drama. One of them, an impoverished aristocrat marries her for her money. Though he is terribly cynical, he does, in some strange way, love her. She is also loved by a super-straight-arrow industrialist. The third lover is a fugitive Greek communist who has been trying to escape Johannes Metaxas' secret police. He and the protagonist are having an affair. Soon after the woman bears him a daughter, the communist is killed. WW II erupts and the woman vanishes. Years pass and the daughter grows up. She heads for Greece to learn more about her parents. There the woman's husband and the capitalist meet again and discuss their shared past. The cinematography of this sweeping romance, based on a novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, is particularly beautiful. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In a way, the title of Some Like It Cool was a piquant comment on the career of star Tony Curtis, whose stardom had chilled since his 1959 appearance in Some Like It Hot. This time around, Curtis plays famed 18th-century lover Giacomo Casanova. The plot would have us believe that Casanova has suddenly turned impotent, and is deploying all manner of subterfuge to hide the fact. One of Casanova's stratagems is to hire a look-alike (also Curtis) to uphold his reputation between the sheets. The stellar supporting cast -- Marisa Berenson, Hugh Griffith, Britt Ekland et. al. -- seem far more embarrassed by their tawdry, topless surroundings than Curtis, who steamrolls his way through the film with the same dogged determination that he'd demonstrated in his "Yonda lies the castle of my fadduh" formative years. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The premise of this film -- that many magistrates in the Italian system of justice are on the take from corporations, politician, and gangsters -- was soon overshadowed by real-life revelations of corruption in high places. One high point in this political melodrama is the humanity with which actor Fernando Rey endows the Chief Justice. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Alberto De Martino's imitative occult horror film, photographed by Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'Amato), is probably the best of numerous Italian copies of The Exorcist that flooded theaters in the mid-'70s. Carla Gravina stars as Ippolita, a paralyzed young woman with serious mental problems stemming from the death of her mother. Her crisis of faith and the intervention of a well-meaning psychologist lead Ippolita to remember her past life as a witch during the Inquisition. Eventually, Ippolita becomes possessed and starts seducing local men, only to break their necks. Eventually, she sleeps with her brother, makes a local sorcerer lick vomit from her hand, and levitates out the window. It takes an exorcism performed by an aging monk (George Coulouris) and the family housekeeper (Alida Valli) to restore order. De Martino and the talented cast manage a few chilling moments despite the predictable storyline, and Gravina is quite good in the lead. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

This film explores the events surrounding the assassination of Mussolini's chief political opponent, socialist Giacomo Matteotti (1885-1924). Matteotti (Franco Nero) was outspoken in his opposition to Mussolini and his principles. Because the investigation of the assassination by an honest judge (Vittorio De Sica) climbed up the rank and file of government officials and ultimately pointed directly to Mussolini himself, it made his political base very shaky, and he (Mario Adorf) moved from constitutional government to dictatorship. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This French-produced thriller was shot entirely in English. Jean-Louis Tritignant stars as Lucien, a hit man who goes to Los Angeles to end the life of an important local mobster. The mobster's heirs, who hired Lucien, had already hired yet another hit man (Roy Scheider) to kill him. He speaks very little English, and the lifestyles and customs of Los Angelenos puzzle him completely. One of the films highlights is its use of many unusual decayed and shabby sites in the Los Angeles area, such as Venice Beach. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi