As God Commands
Actor Diego Abatantuono loved Niccolò Ammaniti's novel that much that he begged director Gabriele Salvatores to cast him as Danilo. Unfortunately, that particular character was not included in the final screenplay so Abatantuono couldn't be cast.,Final credits include 8mm-footage of the five lead stars from a deleted scene.,She's the one
Written by Karl Wallinger
Performed by Robbie Williams
Copyright: Chrysalis Records Ltd / Universal Music Publishing Ltd.,I saw this film last night at the Italian Film Festival in LA and was deeply disappointed. I'm a huge fan of bleak, minimalist cinema and in theory, this movie, with its hand-held aesthetic, promise of exploring neo-fascism in modern Italy, and dark yet humanist subject matter seemed right up my alley. Turns out I was wrong.

Let's start positively, the cinematography is good, especially a gorgeous scene where the lead kid takes a long walk with a wheelbarrow, but everything else about this movie is so over-the-top, so cheesy and manipulative, so thematically scattered, that it was all I could do not to leave the theater and immediately go watch something else to cleanse my pallet.

Especially heavy-handed are the music cues. Oh my god... unbelievable. Every time the music dropped it was with for such obvious, manipulative purposes that I died a little inside. And I guess the movie's constant references to God and his intent on this earth are supposed to resonate on a deep thematic level, but they don't. It's just more overused trite masquerading as meaning in a film lost in its own pretensions.

I really do enjoy this KIND of movie. But this is a terrible example of it.,