Film fest sneak peek

• Source: Global Times
• [11:10 June 18 2010]
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Kiss Me Again

Kiss Me Again (by Gabriele Muccino, Italy, 2010)

If this were an action film, there would be complaints about the extraordinary number of explosions. Not the "bang bang" dynamite sort but the sort that occur in conversation with Italian friends and lovers, and they are often far more dangerous than dynamite.

So many of the conversations in this film are packed with explosions, misun-derstandings, vitriol and passion. It is as if the director wants to caricature Italians as overly emotional, pointlessly passionate people.

The Last Kiss, Muccino's acclaimed 2001 film, explored the lives and loves of a group of friends in Rome. It was an elegant soap opera with class and insight.

Now he takes his camera back, to see how everyone is faring.

Pretty badly it seems. The men are as macho as souped-up Ferrarris and the women as unpredictable as Shanghai traffic. Things have changed for the friends we met in The Last Kiss. Now there are children, along with infidelities, bipolar disorders, medical problems and even a conviction for drug smuggling.

Muccino uses doors as a theme, and we soon begin to recognize the different doors. Usually they are being slammed in the faces of boyfriends, husbands and friends, but every so often they are opened with curiosity and affection.

His characters are pleasantly un-Hollywood: older, flawed but with interesting faces and bodies. Even one of the children, an otherwise cute boy who has not seen his father for 10 years, has a turned-in eye.

Muccino adds a load of irony and makes us laugh at the absurdity of the characters. And there are people here who have great appeal: people who just want a simple relationship to go right, people who cannot understand the magnetism of a former love, and people who have new priorities.

So for two hours, it is enjoyable, and he uses clichés in a witty and sharp way. But he lingers too long. He overcooks his dish. He overdoes, among other things, the sweeping soaring background music.

It is then we begin to realize that his characters have not really matured, that his clichés are just clichés and that he expects his audience to be wearing rose-colored glasses.

But we are not. We are not even wearing 3-D glasses. And the event becomes a predictable and unconvincing farce where true love is at first a joke and then a dream realized.

There are some exquisite moments and entertaining scenes. But the philosophy of the earlier film (this film can be seen without knowing the original, stands alone and should probably remain that way) is not maintained.

Muccino is slated to make a local film next year. Let's hope Shanghai, I Love You is what the city deserves.

Paul LePetit contributed to this story