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Italian Cinema

Gomorra - Matteo Garrone

By Srikanth Srinivasan | November 7th, 2008 | Category: Cinema, Italian Cinema | 1 Comment »

The official entries for the Academy Award have been made and as many as 67 countries are vying for the coveted award this year and the Italian entry is already making waves and being termed as one of the best crime dramas from the country. With the Academy’s policy towards violent and brutal films drastically changing, Gomorra may well cruise through to the last five and one can be sure that the weak Indian entry Taare Zameen Par has one less slot to compete for.


La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) - Federico Fellini

By Srikanth Srinivasan | July 30th, 2008 | Category: Cinema, Italian Cinema | 4 comments

Whenever there is a discussion on Fellini’s ultimate masterpiece, the inevitable finalists are 8½ (1963) and La Dolce Vita (1960). Critics are thoroughly polarized on the former with Joseph Bennett (Kenyon Review) even calling it “The worst film made by a major Italian film director”! As for La Dolce Vita, it receives a much warmer response and is hailed as Fellini’s magnum opus almost unanimously. Along with Akira Kurosawa’s phenomenal Yojimbo (1961), it had become the zeitgeist of the 60’s…