'Italian for Beginners' teaches lonesome Danes ABCs of love, life
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If you didn't catch "Italian for Beginners" at the Women in Cinema Film Festival last weekend, here's your chance to learn that Dogme 95 films now come in a new flavor: sweetly romantic.
Lone Scherfig's film — the 12th certified Dogme 95 film — clearly adheres to the Danish collective's rule book: It's shot with a hand-held camera, with no special effects or extraneous light or sound. With its tight close-ups, flat colors and wandering camera, the movie resembles home-video footage, but that's quickly forgotten once the characters edge their way into the forefront — and it's true to the very real-people vibe of the film.
"Italian for Beginners" focuses on six lonely souls searching for happiness. Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen), a recent widower with a permanently worried face, is a fill-in minister at a Copenhagen church. Among the parishioners is Olympia (Anette Støvelbæk), a shy and clumsy young woman who soon focuses her shining eyes on the pastor.
Also in the mix are Karen the hairdresser, Hal-Finn the restaurant manager/football fan, Jorgen the nervous hotel receptionist and Giulia the waitress, along with the unshaven pottery teacher, Karen's alcoholic mother, the ex-convict who helps out at the church, and the two rotund choristers who, when told communion is canceled because of low attendance, cheerily say, "That's OK, we'll go work out." None of these people have movie-star looks (except perhaps the lovely Giulia, played by Sara Indrio Jensen); all project a slight awkwardness that's rather endearing.
Most of them eventually meet up in the Italian-language class from which the film gets its title and at which the film finds its theme: language as a source of hope and happiness. "Are you married?" asks Andreas of a woman at his church. "No," she replies, "but I take Italian lessons." Through the class, connections are made, love is found, and a halting proposal — in Italian and Danish — is tendered.
There's a gentle quality throughout "Italian for Beginners" — Scherfig clearly has fondness for these characters, even as they stumble. The humor is quiet, stemming from mixed-up funerals and failed haircuts (although there's one very sensual shampoo, with the come-on line, "You have very thick hair," that rivals Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in "Out of Africa").
In the end, as Puccini's music wafts over scenes of Venice, it's impossible not to smile.
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com.
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