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Stanza del figlio, La (2001)

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22 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Intimate, deep, and... rated R, 30 octobre 2002
Author: zio ugo de San Diego, CA

Moretti becomes more mature, more intimate, more personal. While playing an increasing role in Italian politics (with his movement of opposition to the right-wing government), in his films he has abandoned the sharp political criticism of his debut (Ecce Bombo, Io sono un Autarchico), and the cynical and funny social observations of "Bianca," "Palombella Rossa," and "Caro Diario" to give us a compelling portrait of grief.

A noticeable thing about this film is that the stupidity and ignorance of the MPAA gave it an R rating. Apparently, according to the MPAA, teenagers are welcome to see the stupid violence of "Independence Day," or the idiotic cardboard characters of "Spider Man" (both rated PG-13), but should not, except under adult supervision, know that the death of a teenage child is a shocking and traumatizing experience for a family, and could shatter their painfully constructed unity.

The decision of the MPAA provoked outrage in Italy and surprise in Europe. It is amazing that people of such obvious ignorance should be allowed to make such crucial decisions: they should be held responsible for the garbage they feed to teenagers, and for keeping them away from meaningful films.

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17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
The fragility of human harmony, 17 juillet 2002
Author: Cristiano Gobbi (crisgobbi@excite.com) de Florianópolis, Brazil

The theme is not original and has already been explored by many movie directors. The acclaimed polish director K. Kieslowsky, for instance, filmed all of Juliette Binoche`s angle shots in Trois Couleurs: bleu, like a mother and wife trying to live a normal life again after the car accident that has taken away her children and husband.

"La stanza dei figlio" is Nanni Moretti`s viewpoint over the same kind of suffering. A psychoanalyst lives in a small italian town. He appears to be a happy man, happily married and a father of two well behaved teenagers. He spends his days listening to complaints from his patients. But, the job is one thing, the family another thing far from mind games and existencial questions. Giovanni, the psychoanalyst has a comfortable and relaxed life. However, his young son dies while he was scuba-diving in the sea. The movie is about the impact of this fact in the life of Giovanni`s family, mainly affecting his own life. How would he be able to take care of other people`s souls if his own soul had been destroyed?

Nanni Moretti wrote, directed and played in this simple and sad movie that won the most important prize of the international cinema: Cannes. It is not an easy movie to watch, not so much because the screenplay, which is direct, hardly daring in terms of language. "The son`s bedroom" brings the audience to point of tears because of the authenticity in which the actors show their emotions and contradictions revealed to the naked eye, after a tragedy capable of changing people lives from one day to the next. It is a story about strong relationships and their delicated balance.

Those who are thinking of going to see this movie, should be open minded to receive all the reduced gestures on personalities portrayed in it. They are> looking for something which had been lost within themselves . This is a human tale about how much of us belongs to those people who we have met along our own ways.

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13 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
The sincerity of a reformed satirist, 1 mai 2004
Author: Chris Knipp de Berkeley, California

[s p o i l e r s ]

"The Son's Room" ("La stanza del figlio"), in a way, is really two stories.

The first, rather humorous one, more typical of director/writer/star Nanni Moretti's previous work, concerns a somewhat ineffectual Italian psychiatrist, played by Moretti himself. `Italian' and `psychiatrist' sounds like a funny combination to start with. Giovanni, the analyst (Moretti) has a passive Freudian professional persona that sets him up for criticism and even abuse by his egocentric patients. This gently satirical situation underlines the idleness of middleclass people enmeshed in their mostly self-created `problems.' The second story is the much sadder one of how the psychiatrist's little family (Giovanni; Laura Morante as Paula, his wife; and Jasmine Trinca as Irene, their daughter) lose their beautiful young son and brother Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice, of Gabriele Muccino's "Io come te nessuno mai") in a tragic accident, and must come to terms with their irreparable loss. Both stories are sketched in briefly, the family idealized, the patients' personalities reduced to types. What surprises is that Moretti's movie achieves real emotional authenticity precisely because if its light Italian touch.

The two threads intertwine when Andrea's sudden death leads Moretti's character to realize his psychiatric work is pointless. He quits, at least temporarily, and some of his patients' reactions are not what we'd expect. We don't know if he'll go back or not. His wife falls apart too, husband and wife stop sleeping together, and their daughter is so sad and angry she gets herself suspended from her high school basketball team, of which she's a star, breaks up with her boyfriend, and says she doesn't miss him a bit. Giovanni is plagued by guilt because he went off in a car to see a far-flung patient in need instead of jogging with Andrea as originally planned and thus preventing him from going diving with his friends. He keeps having flashbacks to what might have been, blaming himself, the diving equipment, and the patient. A metaphor from the priest at the funeral that's meant to be comforting enrages him.

Eventually a chance event turns things around. Paola opens a letter to Andrea from a girl called Arianna (Sofia Vigliar) who met him briefly in the summer and fell in love. She calls the girl and tells her what has happened. Arianna drops by with another boy waiting below who's about to hitchhike to France with her. They take the two youths to the border. Somehow this trip leads the family to emerge from their grief and take a few timid, hopeful steps toward a return to living.

What makes "The Son's Room" emotionally convincing is the unmanipulative way Andrea's death is handled. It's completely sudden and unexpected. Nothing is done to pump up the tragedy. The boy had flaws. He has admitted he was involved in a theft at school - but it was only done as a prank. He lacks the will to win at tennis and `loses on purpose' in a game the family and Sandro, the sister's boyfriend, are present to watch. But these minor flaws only underline what a nice, handsome, likeable young guy he is and help us to feel the survivors' grief with them. Above all the actor playing Andrea simply seems happy. The style itself is the simplest: none of the sweeping camera pans, flowing music, or squealing "telefonini" of Gabriele Muccino or other contemporary Italian directors.

They grieve briefly and intensely. The scene where they take last looks and plant last kisses on Andrea's body before the coffin is soldered and nailed shut is heart-wrenching and as sudden, mysterious and traumatic as his drowning. The parents and the daughter return to their lives but it's too soon. They aren't ready; they haven't had enough time. Such a death doesn't provide any preparation for the process of grieving. They're left shattered and angry and they go through a period of bitterness and rebellion. It's not denial, because they have responded immediately to the loss of Andrea with tears and crying. But it's obvious that Giovanni is obsessively trying to replay the events in his mind. The rebellion has to play itself out for some time, and this is what we see beginning to end. The movie doesn't say what will happen in the future. It only shows that the family has tentatively begun to live again.

What's authentic and good about this little movie is that nothing is overdrawn. Italian restraint prevails. Everyone has been depicted as `normal,' typical, and presentable (qualities Italians are more comfortable with than Americans may be); but no one is glamorized or falsified. Nothing is done to `tweak' the tragedy, to make it heavy with foreshadowing or pumped up with excessive details or `excitement' or supporting actors. The utter simplicity of the production allows the tragedy to speak for itself simply and powerfully.

As a psychiatrist Moretti seems a bit buffoonish (as he does in his earlier diaristic films), his patients a tad overdrawn, particularly a sex fiend portrayed by "Last Kiss" star Stefano Accorsi. But they'd be tedious otherwise and would detract from the main action. One wonders why Andrea isn't given a few more evident accomplishments aside from looking pretty and being sweet. But the point here is valid: that a teenager is unformed, and teenage boys are inarticulate and therefore mysterious. The excellent Laura Morante does splendid work here as the grieving mother. Jasmine Trinca as the sister, like the others, is appealing and real.

Altogether this is Moretti's most emotionally powerful movie and one of his most successful. He yields his former efforts to be conceptual and clever in favor of authenticity and universality and the gamble succeeds.

As a person who myself lost a sibling in a tragic childhood accident, I find it hard to understand those who scoff at this movie, which feels sincere and true to me. Consider this prejudice or specialized knowledge as you like.

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Endless grief, 19 mars 2006

Author: jpblondeau de Canada

The family ties in this film are so astoundingly true to life, it almost brings back the tears... I cannot think of a better film dealing with grief than La Stanza del Figlio, I swear on my own life. You could think that there was nothing new to bring to the subject of the movie, and boy would you be very very wrong. Moretti deals with the loss of his son in such an amazingly realistic way, it's almost scary... And the sister, played by Jasmine Trinca, is also an endearing character. You truly and deeply feel what their family feels - the negative reviews on this type of movie are ill-directed because they are NOT the target audience. They unfortunately sneaked in the wrong theater !!

Moretti's best. Period.

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
`Son's Room' reminds me why I love character-driven European films., 29 mars 2002
Author: John DeSando (jdesando@columbus.rr.com) de Columbus, Ohio

`Son's Room' reminds me why I love character-driven European films: the pace is slow, the camera lingers on a face longer than an American shot would dare, and the theme is frighteningly simple but almost always universal. In this case, a loving family has lost a son; the grieving process and the letting go are painful and inevitable. The film makes it all as lyrical as could be possible for a grim topic.

The point of view is consistently the psychiatric-professional dad's, who regrets he had not forced his son to run with him rather than go with his friends that fateful Sunday. Dad's sessions with clients frequently mirror his personal family life, before and after the tragedy, adding a melancholy connection between this flawed evaluator of men and his clients. In a dream he tells one of his clients, `I'm just as boring as you are,' certifying that our analyst and the rest of us are neither above nor below the ties that bind humans. Nanni Moretti writes and directs with Jean Renoir's gifted sense of the romance and tragedy of living everyday.

The exaggerated scenes of happy family life before the tragedy, for instance when they lip-synch to tunes during car trips, serve to highlight the unbearably real grief after. Eventually it takes a young outsider to move the characters to another level of reconciliation. Throughout the film the son's room maintains it role as motif to remind that the son, like us, lives in this space for just a short while.

This plot resolution is best expressed by the lyrics on the radio as the family comes to terms with its grief in the final scene

"Here we are stuck by this river/You and I underneath a sky/That's ever falling down, down, down."

This ending fits well the need to get outside grief to beat it at its corrosive game.

`Son's Room' shows that we will be crushed by that sky if we don't take care. The film deservedly won the top prize last year at the Cannes Film Festival.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Ranks high w/"Ordinary People" and "In the Bedroom" on grief, 11 février 2002
Author: george.schmidt (george.schmidt@hbo.com) de fairview, nj

THE SON'S ROOM (2002) ***1/2 (ITALIAN W/SUBTITLES) Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Giuseppe Sanfelice, Jasmine Trinca, Sofia Vigliar. Excellently realized depiction of a loving Italian family who find themselves questioning a bleak future when a tragedy strikes shaking them out of their idealized trappings and seeking resolution to unanswered questions. Moretti, one of Italy's finest comedians, does a superb low-key job here in acting, directing and co-writing (with Linda Ferri and Heldrun Schleef) while maintaining an even-keeled balance of emotions, high and low, throughout thanks also to his talented cast. Haunting, humane and ultimately heart-rending yet never condescending and a final note: one of the most naturally performed interpretation of a nuclear family that truly loves one another equally; a damn rare thing to marvel.

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
True, real emotion, 6 octobre 2001

Author: Ross A Smith de Toronto, Canada

Nanni Moretti's deserved winner of the Palme D'Or was a controversial choice, if only because it is a film grounded in reality and truth. We know these characters for a change, they are the neighbours whom we fear approach because of their loss and raw pain.

Moretti, in his subtle yet magnificent performance and in his deft, assured direction, has crafted a film which transcends cliche and sentimentality in spite of its well trodden subject matter. As in his earlier effort, 'Caro Diario' the viewer is held transfixed by his languid cinematic storytelling, which is nonetheless riveting.

Without resorting to pat endings or easy solutions to the characters' individual suffering (beautifully rendered by each of the performers, whose roles portray distinct yet relevant facets of grief) the film manages a redemption in unexpected, yet highly satisfying, fashion. I left the screening at the Toronto International Film Festival feeling completely exhilarated and grateful to this natural filmmaker.

A beautiful portrait of true, real emotion.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Breaks no new ground; not the slightest bit trendy -- I loved it., 2 janvier 2006

Author: FilmSnobby de San Diego

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Affecting drama about a comfortable -- perhaps TOO comfortable -- Italian family who must deal with the sudden and unexpected loss of one of their own. *The Son's Room* is directed and written by Nanni Moretti; he also stars in the lead role of the psychiatrist patriarch. After watching the movie, I Googled a bit about Moretti and learned that the Italians consider him to be their version of Woody Allen. This reputation must rest on an earlier satirical body of work, because I found little of Allen's influence here. (In fact, the way this film critiques psychiatrists and analysis in general, Moretti may very well be the UN-Woody Allen.) I guess I'll have to take their word for it, as only two of his films have actually received distribution here in the States. If *The Son's Room* is any guide, we're missing out on a lot.

It's not that the film shows us something "new"; in fact, the case is rather the reverse. American viewers who remember Redford's *Ordinary People* may accuse Moretti of plagiarism, but he can hardly be accused of plagiarizing the hysteria, the hammy overacting, and the evidently sincere belief in the utility of psychoanalysis that constitute the primary elements of that earlier American film. In this movie, there is no hack writer's fantasy about uptight well-to-do WASPs "denying" their grief, or hiding it from their country club friends. *The Son's Room* is a day-to-day chronicle of how a family deals with the grinding course of grief, and, as such, strikes me as an unusual undertaking. Why? Because there are no gimmicks here; no deep, dark secrets; no "ethnic" shrink (one of the Hack Writer's favorite stereotypes) to instruct the family on how to be emotional. Heck, the hero of the film IS a shrink (and they're all Italians!), but these facts don't mitigate the agonizing loss of a child. Indeed, the family suffers the usual episodes of derangement: Moretti breaks things in the kitchen and lashes out at his patients; his wife is inconsolable and banishes her husband from the bed; their daughter gets in fights on the basketball court. Nope, nothing "new" . . . and perhaps this is why *The Son's Room* won the Palme d'Or in 2001. It ain't new, but it's Real.

Even better, the movie is not wholly a slog through depression. The mood is lightened by the scenes in the analyst's office, in which Moretti listens to a parade of neurotics nattering away about their largely non-existent problems: we get the sex-addict; the hypochondriac; the obsessive-compulsive, etc. Obviously one of the film's main functions is to expose the psychoanalysis racket. Even before Moretti's son dies, he never seems inspired by his work, never seems to actually help his patients, and barely contains his boredom. The movie goes out of its way to demonstrate that when issues of real consequence occur, psychiatry offers no anodynes. When one of his patients gets cancer, Moretti -- in a real, unguarded moment after his son has already died -- bitterly suggests that mental attitude has nothing to with the chances for survival. And, of course, Moretti himself finds no professionally applied salve for his pain . . . such amelioration can only come from time, and from his family. Psychiatry is obviously useless in these cases; it works much better when you don't have any real problems.

I want to finish by saluting the fine, naturalistic performances by Moretti, the lovely Laura Morante as his wife, Jasmine Trinca as the teenage daughter, and Giuseppe Sanfelice -- appropriately close-lipped and mysterious, with just the right amount of a 16-year-old's childish mischievousness -- as the son Andrea. I also appreciated the top-notch transitions that Moretti gets from his editor: the scenes tend to end abruptly, jarring us out of a prolonged involvement with the characters and situations, like rude interruptions. This is a fitting editorial style for a film that concerns itself with an ultimate rude "interruption".

9 stars out of 10.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Well worth your time, 11 avril 2004
Author: tostinati de United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Spoilers.

This is a film first and foremost about every day life, and incidentally about the way things of no great import and little consequence make up the weeks and months of our lives. People drift through. Nobody pays really close attention to the texture of their day because, as elections may prove, people can get by for years and decades without ever really examining what they are doing, how and why they are doing it, and the things around them.

In the films funniest moment, a patient vows to leave her therapy because her visits to the shrink depress her. In the next breath the doctor says "Okay, see you Tuesday" almost as if he hadn't heard her. She agrees in a word and leaves. But he has heard her. Before the death of his son (which some other posters here think is the single thing that disables him as a therapist) the psychiatrist was droll and more than a little touched by habit in his dealings with his patients.

This witty moment sums up the films often sardonic style. Even the patient's complaint is funny. She says that it is common knowledge that the patients of this particular doctor are so relieved by the end of a session that they go buy a new dress or go eat a good meal right after in order to feel better. She says she should tip off her sister so she can set up a shop near his office. --Nice, dry moment.

In fact this film could be called a totally European film experience. Nothing is rushed. We move to the crucial emotional engagement of the story --the death of one of the nuclear family-- at a pace that will bore a lot of people used to a diet based solely on mainstream movies. And when that crucial moment comes, it passes by quickly enough and with an oblique focus that would make it easy to miss. We see more of aftermath than the event itself --the preparation for burial, the anguished, postponed call to the girlfriend, the efforts to 'do the math' as to why the death even occurred, to understand it in purely physical terms. I don't see any dishonesty in the film. At its worst, it stretches the heartache and misery on too long. We may begin to feel we are in the midst of an emotional wallow. --Stopped just short of Spielberg style manipulation.

Then, deliverance (if that's what it is) comes in the form of a visit from a girl the family has taken to be the deceased son's fledgling girlfriend. Meeting her for the first time, they embrace her warmly, as a member of the family, insisting she spend the night, and go out on the town with the remaining members of the family. She pulls back a bit and tells them she is hiking to France with a friend who is downstairs waiting for her. The friend is a him. They agree as a courtesy to drive her and her friend closer to a major highway and let them off. This into-the-night trip provides the balance and the return to normalcy the family needs. In the resilience of youth, there's a lesson to be learned that is always too pithy when stated verbally, aloud, but it is this: Life goes on.

The Son's Room is about human resilience, and about the unexamined life, perhaps. It takes us to these places without being too pat or too Hollywood. Ten stars. See it.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
O the grief!, 10 janvier 2004

Author: eadon-com de Shropshire, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This Italian movie is a study of grief that is told in an almost matter-of-fact way. This is fortunate, for the theme is so touching I felt that the mostly-detached tone was a wise strategy. Spoilers ahead. A contented nuclear family suffer a destructive blow and we watch, in horrified awe, as the emotional shrapnel wreaks hell. This linear movie, a Cannes winner, makes you ponder the unthinkable. The performances are convincing and the score interesting. The direction was good too. The claustrophobic shots of the analyst at the time of disaster; the painful scene with the coffin where the daughter requests one final glimpse; the scene where she breaks down in the clothes shop; the (Spoiler!) cathartic appearance of the innocent girlfriend, who, with the endearing lack of tact of the young, had brought along a replacement boyfriend! That last point is fascinating, it suggests to the family that even their lost son was replaceable and people move on. We are replaceable. Someone once said that when you quit a job, the hole you leave will be like that left by a hand being pulled from a bucket of water. Tis true of death too. Incidentally, The MPAA rated this movie R !! This over-powerful organisation obviously prefers teenagers to watch ubiquitous Hollywood violence, may the gods help is if kids are exposed to thoughtful, character-driven foreign movies. Whether it is driven by an ass-backwards "morality" or a cynical desire to make more money for Hollywood studios and itself, the MPAA's absurd behavior seems to me to be akin to a burning-of-books mentality, and makes America look immoral. Ponette, a French movie about grief, this time as experienced by a small child, was for me the most moving I've seen of the sad film genre (but I've seen very few). That movie deeply affected me, at a time when I was troubled.

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