Room in Rome *½

Director: Julio Medem
Cast: Elena Anaya, Natasha Yarovenko
Enrico Lo Verso, Najwa Nimri

Even if he has a fantastic eye for sensuous visuals and material eroticism, Julio Medem has absolutely no clue about how to be subtle. Therefore this movie, that could've easily been a melancholic, oversexed version of Brief Encounter, becomes soft porn with elaborate dialogues and tears.
There is not much of a plot and the film basically revolves around a single night two, not-so-single, women spend in a Roman hotel room.
At first all we know about them is their nationalities; Alba (Anaya) is from Spain, Natasha (Yarovenko) is Russian. Later we also learn one of them is a lesbian as she convinces the other to surrender to desire and have sex.
During the rest of the film they forget to put their clothes back on and spend the hours sharing secrets, stories, orgasms and something they both think begins to resemble love.
It has to be said that for playing characters that sometimes defy logic, the actresses fare really well. Anaya in particular brings a sense of deep sadness to Alba that make her moving even when she's exchanging emotions with a cellphone.
Both women are exquisitely beautiful and probably make the admission price worthy for any audience members just looking to satiate their imaginations but there are moments in the film when they go through so much bullshit that you have to wonder if they are naked to symbolize them baring their souls or Medem is trying to distract us from his terrible writing by having them have a naked pillow fight.
For every thing that the movie gets right; like the moments when these women do silly things and feel completely alive, there are times when Medem can't help but show off his gimmick. Mostly his film feels exploitative because other than a scene here and there, every single element in it seems too thought out, too preconceived.
The characters in Medem's head seem to be people created specifically for the purpose of existing in this very limited universe he created. One of them for example turns out to be a Renaissance expert, not because it makes her more complex but because that way Medem can make all sorts of references to how his plot was prepared by Italian history.
And for every time that the movie gets something right along the way, the director comes and sticks something as unsubtle as Russian Red's Loving Strangers, a song that not only becomes annoying after popping up so much but robs the film of anything that even remotely resembles real emotions.
It's interesting that during many moments we see Google Earth be essential to the plot, this gives us a glimpse of the film that could've been: a nostalgic doomed romance grounded by the fact that modern life hasn't made finding love any easier.

Baarìa **

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cast: Francesco Scianna, Margareth Madè, Ángela Molina
Monica Bellucci, Raoul Bova, Enrico Lo Verso, Gaetano Aronica

Epic in every sense of the word, Giuseppe Tornatore's "Baarìa"is a lovesong to the Sicilian town of Bagheria; Tornatore's own "Amarcord" if you like.
Like Fellini's masterpiece, this movie is composed of vignettes where we see life filtered through the views of the townspeople, particularly Peppino Torrenuova (Scianna) who becomes our guide through the decade spawning yarn.
We follow Peppino from his humble beginnings as the son of a shepherd (Aronica), his courting of the beautiful Mannina (Madè), up to his association with the Communist party, problems with the mafia and the creation of his own family.
Beautifully shot and framed, "Baarìa"'s major flaw is how aimless it all feels. Being such a personal film, it's obvious that the beauty will vary from the author to the beholder but then why put so many memories into film if they only serve oneself?
It's impossible to avoid comparing this movie to "Amarcord", Fellini is mentioned in the screenplay and is an obvious influence to a character in the film that represents Tornatore. Fellini too delivered a romantic ode to his Rimini, but unlike the master, Tornatore has little to add besides how idyllic life was.
While Fellini added a ceratin kind magic to the retelling of his childhood memories (he was after all a self professed liar who had no trouble making up Arabic princes and outrageous adventures) Tornatore remains a bit more reverential and tries not to offend anyone by trivializing fascism for example.
In the process though, he ends up doing just that, by turning political differences into impersonal things that more than influence the characters and the story, become irrelevant details that steer the movie away from its loving gazes at mountains and ancient villas.
Tornatore avoids all conflict that could make his characters human and create emotional connections, instead choosing to light them appropriately in ways that their beauty too overcomes the ugliness of real life.
His cast is made out of gorgeous Italian people (including Bova and Bellucci who each have exactly one scene and are put in the credits just to attract audiences probably) who spend time looking like young Christy Turlingtons emulating Sophia Loren and the sculpted men Pasolini cast for his own films.
This brings up a dilemma as we wonder if Tornatore truly remembers his childhood like this and is in complete denial of tragedies (one character in the film is notorious for being able to sleep throughout WWII air raids) or if he's trying to make the longest "visit Sicily" commercial in history.
Despite all the time we spend in Baarìa we are never able to create an encompassing vision of the town and we definitely aren't tempted to revisit it.