text: Le conseguenze dell'amore (2004)is a beautifully made film that takes small carefully positioned steps towards its ending that need to be savoured in order to be enjoyed. From the contrasting landscapes, to the tightly enclosed world that the hero inhabits, we are taken by the Director and controlled from the very moment we enter the hotel. We, like the hero, will never escape from the suffocating intensity and paradoxical monotony of his criminally driven, Mafia world. That the film resists Mafia stereotypes whilst revelling in them makes it all the more successful. The concrete grave, the inevitable brutal executions and overwhelming maleness are laid bare and exposed for what they are. Just brutality and business, and no more. Life is about being part of the corporate machine that is organised crime and not about love or living for self, family or others. Our hero is indeed a hero in that he gives up his life for the sake of the touch of the beautiful barmaid, the resolution of the misery suffered by his only neighbours in the hotel and in order to escape his decorative prison. The consequences of love are indeed beautiful and brutal at the same time. See it!!