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Movie Monday - The Italian (2005)

(Spoiler Alert: I consider the journey in The Italian the story more than the journey's end. Don't read my last paragraph if you don't want a hint of its ending.)

The internet is soooo slow this morning. Are zillions of people cyber shopping already? 

I have another word (2 words really) for you today (I hope this doesn't become a trend): cognitive dissonance, 

 http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html

which I define, from reading the above site and others, to be when a person's firm beliefs come in conflict with reality so he tweaks reality to fit those beliefs.

I've got two examples for you from just last week. First, dear mom answered a robo call from an organization which appears on the phone display as: Defeat Obama and she heard that we should be deporting Obama because he is a Muslim communist. Then they mentioned a name and said something like: You don't recognize that name, do you? Well, that's Obama's real name and we have proof. She was a brave soul but she did hang up after they told her all they needed from her was $3 to start the deportation process. 

Then there was the Israeli PM spokesman whom I heard being interviewed on the RT (Russian TV) channel. She was a good interviewer and pressed him on the illegal settlements, the bulldozing of homes, the embargo on Gaza and the blockade. But his one note mantra, as he ignored all her questions, was: They're firing rockets at us. They have to stop. It's all their fault. 

Scientific tests today (MRIs) are finally showing that such thinking is almost bred in the brain; all the teaching of logic in the world can't budge it.

Which I guess I could say is a long segue into my movie pick, which is not The Exterminating Angel, as promised, for two reasons. First, this movie needs another viewing. I'm going to review it with another 45 minute (they ran out of money) Bunuel movie, Simon of the Desert. That movie I get, but TEA has multiple themes and puzzling aspects (Just why do the house guests enter the house two times?) which need more digestion. 

The second reason is directly tied to my introduction: This is such a wacky but deadly serious time in history and we all need some succor.

I think you'll find it in The Italian (2005) which is weirdly named since the movie involves the upcoming adoption of a six year old Russian boy by an Italian couple and then follows his escape from the orphanage and his journey to find his birth mother. All of this takes place in post Soviet Russia.

In no way is this a Lassie, Come Home movie. Director Andrey Kravchuk paints the bleakest picture of Russian poverty and the Oliver Twist type atmosphere in the orphanage. Run by a greedy post-USSR Russian capitalist only identified as Madam, for the most part the children are left to their own devices to make spending money. Little Vanya assists the older boys at a gas station and Irka prostitutes herself for the money she turns over to the orphanage's teen boss, Kolyan. It is a grim scene but as Kravchuk always knows when to pull back before sentimentality drenches a scene, he also never presents this bleak world in a completely nihilistic fashion. Realistic or not, there is always hope for little Vanya. 

And this is little Vanya's journey and movie. If Nikolay Spiridonov had been a lesser child actor, this movie would have sunk like a rock. But Spiridonov has the talent which is present in few child actors because it is so unaffected. You are watching Vanya make his journey,  not Nikolay Spiridonov playing the character Vanya. This makes all the difference. 

Hard-hearted as I am, even I teared up as Vanya rings the bell at his mother's home then slicks back his hair to make himself presentable to this strange woman. But even there, Kravchuk pulls back, a neighbor answers the door, the mom is working the night shift.

Granted that with the stark backdrop Kravchuk is presenting, this whole movie could most realistically spiral into utter despair. But I'm recommending it because while he presents the despair he also presents the hope.

OK, maybe 11 times out of 11, Vanya would be adopted and never see his birth mother again. But not this time. This time, the whole world is not evil. Vanya finds help from strangers as he makes his journey. Even the "bad" people can have a change of heart. It's well-acted, well-directed and as you keep wanting to believe good will happen to Vanya, Kravchuk doesn't disappoint.

See you next week.