Simply A Masterpiece

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Unlike the main title may suggest THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE is not your typical romantic comedy or even romantic drama… no, it's well far beyond that! It's mostly a drama for sure but where love enters in a very dark and unusual way… It tells the story of an unsympathetic and lonely man TITTA DI GIROLAMO (played by Toni Servillo) who lives in a hotel room for about 8 years and has a very solitary and monotonous live. He has some dark secrets as well… Nothing changes his routines until he falls in love for the incredibly beautiful green eyes of SOFIA (Olivia Magnani), the girl who works in the Hotel's bar.The plot is straight to follow but the kind of cinematography used and the way the scenes are mounted turn this movie a bit puzzling at parts. The camera-work is excellent and the way the director shot some angles and details are simply brutal! I'm talking about the scene in the hotel room when the camera passes over DI GIROLAMO's head and then stops shooting his face upside down! Or even the very two last scenes of the movie. These are just two examples of this great directing work! The soundtrack is quite nice as well.This story doesn't end unsolved but I think there're some questions that still without answers at the end, like what happened to the mysterious SOFIA… To sum up, it's a good film with a great performance from Toni Servillo.

Italian screenwriter and director Paolo Sorrentino's second feature film which he wrote, premiered In competition at the 57th Cannes International Film Festival in 2004, was shot on locations in Italy and is an Italian production which was produced by producers Domenico Procacci, Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima and Angelo Curti. It tells the story about a middle-aged man named Titta De Girolamo who has lived in a anonymous hotel in Switzerland during the last eight years. Titta is a well dressed and short-spoken man who has maintained an ice-cold facade for a long time and who spends his days at the hotel's bar and lobby where he distantly observes the personnel and the guests, but his life alters the day he unexpectedly allows himself to become interested in a young and attractive bartender named Sofia.Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino had made a number of short films before he in 2001 made his debut feature film "One Man Up" and he received international recognition three years later with his next narrative feature. Within the 100 passing minutes this piece of art lasts, times existence disappears and one's eyes is magnetically drawn towards Paolo Sorrentino's minimalistic vision of an esoteric character's monotone and ritualistic life at a hotel where colorful individuals live in a spiral of repetitive behavior. Through the protagonist's point of view, a reflective voice-over narration, sterling production design by Italian production designer Lino Fiorito, cinematography by Italian cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and a great score by Italian composer Pasquale Catalano, Paolo Sorrentino depicts a refined study of character about a nostalgic and introvert 49-year-old man who against his own principles let's the light into his life at the moment he establishes communication with an accommodating woman who has spent two years trying to declare her existence to him. This fascinating play with perspectives which almost exclusively takes place at a hotel, becomes a distinct film experience much due to Paolo Sorrentino's characteristic use of close-ups, repetitions, slow-motion scenes, long takes and sequences with rapid editing where the music is impressively well calculated, and is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, quiet though intensifying continuity, cinematographic expertise, aesthetic depiction of an almost mechanical upper class milieu, synoptic screenplay, quick-witted dialog and the understated and convincing acting performances by Italian actor Toni Servillo and Italian actress Olivia Magnani. An existential drama, an unconventional love fable, a thriller, a neo-noir or a gangster drama, Paolo Sorrentino's genre mix is well-constructed and this ingenious work is inspiring cinematic creativity from the innovating opening scene to the stylized ending. A brilliant exercise of style and form where image, sound, movement, figure of speech and narration is sublimely incorporated.

The movie is a really well made one, which is great and looking and passionately directed. You can tell that every shot is thought over and executed to perfection. For the lovers of cinema this is especially a great watch and they especially should be able to appreciate the beauty of it and the passion for cinema that is being put into it.It's hard to place this movie under one label. It's not really a drama, it's not really a thriller and it's not really a comedy. Instead its more a movie with its own style, that does things its own way. It doesn't necessarily follow the rules of cinema and features many different elements from many different genres combined.But just like the movie its main character, the movie gets sort of slow and boring in parts. The artistic style of directing tries to conceal that the story is actually a quite simple one and it's more as if the movie relied solely on its style and overall atmosphere created by the movie. It doesn't make the movie horrible or anything but it just prevents it from being a true absolute must-see. In parts the movie also feels as if it's trying to be too poetic and tries to let the images speak too much for itself. It just feels a bit overdone in parts, though for most part of the movie it still works out beautifully.It features some great camera-work and some unique storytelling, which makes this an original as well as a great film to watch.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Maybe my rating should have been a 9, but the film absolutely stunned me when viewing it first time and my latest viewing confirmed my initial belief. Stylish yes, every scene has crafted scoped views, terrific angles with a perfect sound side accompanying them.Put on top great acting from especially Toni Servillo, garner it with one of the most beautiful and charming women in Olivia Magnani, and a fine plot and you will end up seeing this small masterpiece over and over.Paulo Sorrentinos next movie "L'Amico De Famiglia", which is in competition in this years Cannes Festival, will be eagerly awaited.