Thanks for the memories!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

A different way of telling a story

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie about a man who lives a very poring life where everything is scheduled, he did not want to talk to anybody or to have interest in anything. After seeing a beautiful young girl he starts to look to his life with new glasses. He wanted to change the rhythm by starting a new life with her that considered by him as the biggest risk in his life but dramatically at the moment he was escaping from the past he thought that she did not love him and so he decided to die in (exceptional) way which needs a lot of courage. The acting was good, the screenplay is simple though captivating, and the direction is the finest in the movie.This movie worth to be watched.

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!!

The opening sequence in this movie is one of the most stylish I have ever seen. Including the power of perfectly formulated first uttered words that directly tells the spectator what it is all about: "The worst thing for a man who spends a lot of time alone is...". There we go. So the main character is a loner. And you immediately want to know more about him. You are hooked and the film has your full attention.Each man is a mystery. Some big, some small. When there is a big mystery there is a good starting point for a movie. The plot in "The Consequences of Love" evolves around a man played by Toni Servillo with a secret that unfolds slowly. Slowly and gracefully in its own pace. And it is no need to hurry when the man is living in a comfortable hotel in Lugano in Switzerland. It is enjoyable to be there with him and share his daily routines, just as it is enjoyable sitting in the hotel bar in Tokyo with Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation". Toni Servillo's character has stayed at his hotel for eight years so he is in no hurry. And we have to accommodate to his speed. Or lack of speed, and that just feels good.But just as we have accommodated to his lack of speed, things begin to happen and we are forced to leave the calm and quiet life at the hotel. And like in so many other movies it is love that triggers action.When the first signs of love are showed between the mysterious man who is in his fifties and the girl who is much younger than him and works in the hotel bar, you start thinking a love story will unfold. But the movie is not a love story. At least not a traditional love story. No, the film just uses love as the trigger that sets action in motion. The focus stays on the loner and his actions that leads the plot to its unavoidable end, almost like in a Greek tragedy.Having seen this movie it is also impossible not to mention the clothes. Toni Servillo's character is extremely well dressed. It's a sheer joy seeing him and you cannot help but being both impressed and inspired His wardrobe, signed the Italian fashion house Kiton, is gorgeous and made me go out shopping a new suit the day after I saw the movie. But not a Kiton suit. The handmade suits from Kiton cost between 5 000 and 15 000 USD each.

Judging by the comments above , this film is almost unknown in America. This is the kind of " new' European movie that " scores' on the old continent. At least in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, not representative !) it had quite a moderate to good box office success. As a film-goer who grew up on the seventies diet of Visconti, Fellini, Antonioni, etc. (in the cinema that is, not on video...) (TV hardly ever shows this art) I do not see what is so important on this movie, or on another recent Italian top-hit in Holland, La Meglio Giuventu. Italian cinema may be on a comeback trail, but in my opinion the quality here is missing. I find this film highly confusing, and , main objection against it: as we say in Dutch, "putting the viewer on the wrong leg...". Who could think of a worse ending than the main character drowning in a classic Mafia concrete bath....., if I had seen this one in the cinema (I rented a DVD instead) I would have walked out sick....And then, what is the role of the bar maid (grand daughter of Magnani) ? We expect, by the title, a role for her in saving his life from the trap he is in right now. No, not to be. Conclusion: a bad script, a plot that takes crazy turns, but, as my colleagues here agree, great camera work, and a good main role . I rate it a 5,9 out of 10.