Thursday, August 10, 2006

I'm not Scared (Io no ho paura)

Kidnap movie no 2.

Italian cinema seems to specialise in nice-to-look-at coming of age dramas about young boys. Perhaps this is because this is a stage in life many adult Italian men appear to have bypassed!

I blogged about the novel when I read it a couple of years ago and I have very little to add here. Gabriele Salvatores' film has everything the book has...and less. Take away the bright and beautiful scenery and you are left with little to dwell over. The film fails in my view to capture the sinister side to the limited adult world around Michele and his friends, and the dark presentiment of childhood betrayed has been largely obscured by the persistent prettification.

Yet it's a tribute to the writing skills of Niccolò Ammaniti that I somehow felt I had 'seen' these undulating, champagne-coloured landscapes before.

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