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Italy, France · 2009
1h 8m
Director Pietro Marcello
Starring Vincenzo Motta, Mary Monaco, Franco Leo
Genre Documentary, Drama
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A genre-defying Italian docudrama that follows mustachioed ex-con Enzo, who has returned to Genoa after serving a long sentence in prison to find that the city he once loved has changed almost beyond recognition. But as he combs the city for hints of his past, he finds solace in the arms of Maria, his faithful transgender partner who embodies the mysterious beauty of Genoa itself.
The couple's extended interview together is so oddly touching that you wished Marcello had focused solely on them, instead of incorporating vintage cityscape footage and free-form wanderings through the northern town's waterfront district into the mix.
Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene
We experience the delay of the fantasy of the happy old couple in their country home in cinematic time as, for most of the film, the only body these lovers have is the spellbinding combination of visual fragments serving as apparitions to their voices.
Village Voice by Melissa Anderson
A collection of "small great stories," in the words of its unobtrusive narrator, Pietro Marcello's singular doc/fiction hybrid salutes the crumbling grandeur of the northern Italian seaport Genoa.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
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