HOME   News   Reviews   Adv Search   Features   My DVD   About   Apps   Stats     Search:
  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 2.35:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer ( )
  Languages
  • Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  Subtitles
    English
  Extras
  • 4 Deleted scenes
  • 3 Teaser trailer
  • Animated menus
  • Interviews
  • 2 Documentaries
Remember Me (Ricordati Di Me)
/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 120 mins . M15+ . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Italian director Gabriele Muccino brings us a family of four on the point of mutual destruction.

All the members of the family -- husband, wife, seventeen-year-old daughter and slightly younger son -- are searching for confidence and self-esteem. This is an extravagant family in which no member has time to help each other. All their needs must be found outside the group.

The mother, Guilia (Laura Morante), seeks relief from frustration and boredom by attempting to renew her early career as an actor. Daughter Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff) attempts to fulfil her life's dream, of becoming a scantily-clad singing and dancing hostess on a television quiz-show. The son Paolo (played by the director's younger brother Silvio Muccino) attempts to resolve his rotten love-life. Masturbation just isn't enough.

Then there's the ostensible head of the family, Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio). He's in a mid-management position in advertising or marketing. But he's also a frustrated writer, who has been sitting on his unfinished first-novel for something like 20 years. His unresolved ambitions come to a head when, at a party, he meets up with a former girlfriend, Alessia (Monica Belucci). Their unfinished business gets wrapped up with his unresolved creative urge, in an explosive mess of anguished sex.

While Valentina tries to screw her way into a television quiz-show career and Paolo tries to buy love and friendship with a bagfull of dope, the parents fight their own private and connected battles. For the most part, none of the protagonists know what the others are simultaneously going through -- not until the husband's dramas reach breaking-point.

It's a highly dramatic but also very subtle drama, and its ambiguous resolution is itself both wry and masterly.

  Video
  Audio
  Extras
Contract

The transfer isn't exactly your sparkling demo-quality print, but it is very serviceable, with very few artefacts of any kind. It's just that the quality doesn't scream 'look at me' the way the best DVD productions can.

Sound is loud, spread across a mainly central stage with good clarity for both music and dialogue.

The main extra feature is a 36-minute Making Of documentary which gives a few interesting insights into the production, without being really compelling viewing in its own right. Then there are four deleted scenes, which again don't seem to contribute much at all.

During an extra feature, director Gabriele Muccino relates how the astonishingly beautiful Nicoletta Romanoff virtually walked into the role of daughter Valentina as a result of her outstanding audition. The most interesting special feature of all on this disc is that actual audition. And Muccino can't be blamed for hiring her on the spot.

There's another audition, for either the son or his girlfriend, or both. We're not told which one is trying out for the role. It hardly matters; it's just a disc-filler.

Then there's a 15-minute interview with the director, which adds a bit more background to this film and his career, and the final extras are three theatrical trailers, for Since Otar Left, Facing Windows and Tom White.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=5212
  • Send to a friend.
  • Do YOU want to be a DVDnet reviewer? If so, click here

    Cast your vote here: You must enable cookies to vote.
  •   And I quote...
    "Superior drama about an Italian family on the verge of a nervous breakdown."
    - Anthony Clarke
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DVD 655A
    • TV:
          Loewe Profil Plus 3272 68cm
    • Receiver:
          Denon AVR-3801
    • Speakers:
          Neat Acoustics PETITE
    • Centre Speaker:
          Neat Acoustics PETITE
    • Surrounds:
          Celestian (50W)
    • Subwoofer:
          B&W ASW-500
      Recent Reviews:
    by Anthony Clarke

    A Fistful of Dollars (Sony)
    "An essential Spaghetti-Western, given deluxe treatment by MGM."

    Stripes
    "Falls short of being a classic, but it gives us Bill Murray, so it just has to be seen."

    Creature Comforts - Series 1: Vol. 2
    "Delicious comic idea given the right-royal Aardman treatment. "

    The General (Buster Keaton)
    "Forget that this is a silent movie. This 1927 classic has more expression, movement and sheer beauty (along with its comedy) than 99 per cent of films made today."

    Dr Who - Claws Of Axos
    "Is it Worzel Gummidge? No, it's Jon Pertwee in his other great television role, as the good Doctor battling all kinds of evil on our behalf."

      Related Links
      None listed

     

    Search for Title/Actor/Director:
    Google Web dvd.net.au
       Copyright © DVDnet. All rights reserved. Site Design by RED 5   
    rss