Belleville (Vite in Sospeso)
Directed by Marco Turco
Welcome to Paris for the party...
It's a family reunion to celebrate Dario's (Ennio Fantastichini) birthday. A tightnit group of Italian expatriates gather for the party, as well as Dario's estranged father and his much younger half-brother, Jacopo (Massino Bellinzoni), visiting from Italy. The younger Jacopo is a journalist and is very excited to spend time with Dario. He had always idolized his mysterious brother, his independence and his radical politics. He begins to interview Dario's friends, who had all been terrorists over 10 years ago to try to learn more about his brother.
This film is a fabulous study in the unfolding of the characters, their lives and secrets. The suspicions begin to rise from Jacopo's interviews and the strain that begins to show on this group of terrorists with "something to hide" and suspect that Jacopo might be with the police.
There are some powerful exchanges between Dario & his father who seem to always have been at odds (his father left his mother before he was born) and questions whether it was his fault that Dario became a terrorist...and then the final confession by Dario to his brother, in tears, that with his house & family, that he had become the man he had killed so many years ago.
Reviewed by Eric Michel, FilmCities
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