Bread and Tulips

(source: tmdb.org

Some people, especially those caught in the routine of everyday family life, need some time before they realise that they would have to deal with certain issues. That includes the protagonist of Bread and Tulips, 2000 Italian romantic comedy directed by Silvio Sondini. For Rosalba Barletta (played by Licia Maglietta), housewife from Pescara, family is supposed to be everything but her husband Mimo (played by Antonio Catania) and two teenage sons ignore and neglect. Rosalba can’t deny this after being late for bus during family vacation and Mimo not bothering to ask driver to wait. Left at the bus station, Rosalba is further humiliated after Mimo tells her not to move until he organises transport home. After few hours Rosalba’s nerves give up and she impulsively decides to go home by hitch hiking. On the way she remembers that she never visited Venice and impulsively decides to use opportunity and go there. Upon arrival to the city, it turns out that aren’t any hotel rooms available, but kind-hearted Icelandic waiter Fernando Girasole (played by Bruno Ganz) offers her to sleep in his room. Rosalba stays in Venice a little bit longer and, in order to finance her stay there, takes job in flower shop run by eccentric Fermo (played by Felice Andreasi). In the meantime, Mimmo realises that there aren’t anybody who would iron his shirt so he decides to find Rosalba and bring her back. Unemployed plumber Constantino Capoganeli (played by Giuseppe Battiston) is hired for the job with his only qualification being good knowledge of detective novels. While Constantino travels to Venice to solve his first case, Rosalba strikes friendship with her Grazia Reginella (played by Marina Massironi), holistic masseuse and her neighbour and also realises that her feelings towards Fernando are something more than friendship.

Romantic comedies were, at least when hardcore cinephiles are concerned, given something of a bad name by Hollywood due to drowning in cliches and implausibilities. Thankfully, other cinema industries can make that genre look refreshing. Director and co-writer Silvio Sondini has done impressive job, which was confirmed by Bread and Tulips receiving eleven David di Donatello Awards, Italian equivalent of Oscars. Reason for that is Sondini’s refusal to follow unofficial Hollywood rules of the genre. The protagonist is middle-aged woman and the characters, despite their quirkiness, look like people that could be encountered in real life and with whom the audience could easily identify. The cast is very impressive, especially Swiss actor Bruno who was, by that time, one of the icons of European art cinema. Another great performance was given by Marina Massironi, who few years earlier had great role in Massimo Venier’s Three Men and a Leg and who here, despite playing supporting role, easily overshadows Licia Maglietta in main role.

Good direction and very good cast don’t mean that the film is perfect. Bread and Tulips suffers from poor pacing and running time is almost two hours, which is unusual and can, at times, be fatal for this sort of films. Sondini also confuses audience with somewhat redundant scenes of Rosalba’s visions. However, picturesque Venetian locations, humane Mediterranean humour and attractive characters provide enough reasons for this film to be recommended even to the audience that doesn’t care much for romantic comedies.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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Italian-Swiss film, starring the Italian actress Licia Maglietta and the recently deceased Swiss actor Bruno Ganz (the one famous for the masterful interpretation of Hitler in "The Fall").

Without many pretensions I watched this film on DVD that I still had unopened (also to see if my now obsolete technology player still worked).

The story begins on a tour of several families through Roman ruins where Rosalba ( Lucia Maglietta) is accidentally left by her family (a choleric husband and two teenage sons) at a gas station.

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Once they notice her absence, they ask the truck to return, but she decides to return to Pescara, where they live, indignantly hitchhiking, but ends up in Venice, a place she has always wanted to visit.

She spends the night there and the next day misses the train, at which point she decides to stay and begins a beautiful story of rediscovery and recovering some of the small pleasures of life, lost in a marriage consummated in early youth.

As to why bread and tulips, I read that perhaps it refers to a phrase from a speech by Rose Schneiderman, a famous feminist and leader of working women, who said "Souls, like bodies, can starve to death.

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We want bread but we also want roses" changing the rose for the tulip, or perhaps it refers to the idyllic relationship between her and Fernando (Bruno Ganz) her lawyer landlord who every morning leaves her breakfast prepared with a good piece of bread and she does not forget to leave a bouquet of tulips on the table at night.

This film won awards in Italy for best film, best actress and best actor the year after its release, its slogan alone "Imagine a life, now go live it" should have convinced me to see it long before, recommended.

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