Angela (I) (2002) User Reviews

A Moody Bit of Sicilian Life and Crime

[gradyharp · 5/10 · 3 April 2007]

Italian director Roberta Torre co-wrote with Massimo D'Anolfi this little film based on a true story of an incident in 1984 Sicily that revealed the integration of home life with crime in a quietly subtle way. Expect no major crime scenes (with one exception) and don't look for a THE SOPRANOS spin-off and the film will entertain because it is an honest attempt to demonstrate how passion can upset even the most controlled crime syndicate.

Angela (the very beautiful Donatella Finocchiaro) is married to Rosario 'Saro' Parlagreco (Mario Pupella), a shoe store owner in Palermo where Angela works - not only selling shoes but also selling drugs in a very cleverly devised crime syndicate run by her husband. Saro gives her jewels and money and all the things that are supposed to make a wife happy. But when Angela's interest in the business/drug trafficking wanes, Saro brings on handsome Masino (Andrea Di Stefano) to brighten the scene. The police are watching the operation, attempting to capture evidence to shut down the drug business. When Angela and Masino begin a rather torrid affair the police photograph their liaisons and this leads to the destruction of the shoe store drug business. The entire group is jailed with Angela and Manino being released on house arrest. But when Saro is informed by the police of his wife's infidelity the theme becomes operatic and the resolution of the true story is typical Sicilian drama.

The movie is slight, short, in Italian with English subtitles, and is well wroth watching for the pleasure of Donatella Finocchiaro's presence. It is fascinating to see how even a small drug operation can have such impact on a real family. Grady Harp

A bit boring because it was filmed that way...

[Sherazade · 7/10 · 30 December 2006]

imagine if somebody took a camera a began filming your everyday life, and I mean every single thing you do. How interesting would that be? Quite boring actually because you have to be somebody like Britney Spears in order never to have a dull moment. Anyhow, this movie was filmed in a very voyeuristic sort of way for more reasons than one. And the lurking camera feel gets unnerving at times.

Firstly, it's based on the true life story of a Mob wife named Angela and the occurrences in her life. So naturally, the story is told in a very raw manner, delving into Angela's story and showing why things went awry. Angela plays a very pivotal part in the life of her husband (an older and somewhat wiser man) who also happens to be a drug dealer. Together in their little shoe shop, they run their drug ring under the pretense of delivering brand new shoes to customers. Because Angela is a woman, she is able to roam the streets of Italy freely without being stopped by police and so she is the main delivery woman, carrying and spreading drugs around the corrupt city. Little does she know that she is under police surveillance which becomes the biggest hindrance in her life as the film later reveals. If the police has been taping everything about Angela, imagine all what they'll know about her.

Sooner than later, Angela becomes restless and tired of the drug trade and brings this up with her husband who in turn placates her by assuring her that everything will be alright. A few days later, he hires a young and handsome new guy into their business and the sparks between this new face and Angela are as instant as they are apparent and before either one of them knows it, they embark on an ill-fated lust-filled relationship that is also being taped by the police. You can only imagine what they will do with the evidence.

Once and again: a pointless fictionalized documentary

[vostf · 5/10 · 10 December 2002]

Not much to say about Angela since the movie fits in the nice but not very creative category of docu-fiction. It's nicely shot, yet a little too nicely with many scenes taking advantage of casual mirrors and many scenes focusing on Angela's face. Nicely crafted Angela is a thoughtful movie not a deep one.

Maybe the director will claim she only wanted to bring this story to screen. No further ambition. And what about writing a screenplay including this true story base? That would be cheating on the simple reality of life? My dear, that's what is called cinema!

The docu-fiction Bully (2001) was deeper (less banking on some built-in sentimentalism) but to no avail. Modeled on a true story... Screen loitering at best; definitely not cinema at his best.

Rather plodding telling – 'just the facts ma'am, just the facts'

[bob the moo · 31 May 2004]

Rosario Parlagreco (Saro) owns and runs a successful show shop in Italy with the help of his wife Angela and some other 'family'. However the shoe store is just a front for the buying and selling of large amounts of cocaine – a fact the police suspect and are monitoring with the hope of being able to make an arrest. While unaware that they are under surveillance, business continues as normal and Saro brings the young, headstrong Masino into the business to act as intelligent muscle. However Angela, tired of the life and looking for something different, falls for him and begins an affair that threatens the whole set-up.

BBC4 has become somewhat of a haven for me, showing several foreign or art films each week. At the time I saw this film I had just come off the back of a season of films from South America and I had got into the habit of them showing me films that I very much enjoyed and was grateful to have seen. For that very reason, the drabness of Angela was even more of a surprise to me coming, as it was, from a channel I had started to trust. Based on a true story that I have never heard of and am not aware of the facts of, this film takes a very basic approach to the story, telling it in an episodic fashion rather than in an adapted screenplay, dramatic fashion. This in itself is not a bad thing even if it is problematic. The scenes continually fade out and they really break up any flow – of course the bigger problem is the lack of story.

We are presented with the story as it happened and it is told as if we were reading it in a newspaper. I do not condemn the decision to shoot it in a documentary style but it just didn't work in this occasion; it would have been much better to develop a script around the facts instead. For this reason I never really got into the film and never cared about the characters – the lack of flow really damaged the film a great deal and I was surprised to find that I felt the same apathy towards Angela and the others as I had mere seconds into the film (ie I didn't grow to care about them). The direction is also pretty poor, although I can forgive it at some points as budget was a clearly a limitation. The swinging camera is meant to make it realistic I guess but this style doesn't work when the majority of the shots are close-ups, instead it is off-putting. The limits of the budget are seen in shots like the ones in cars – which are not even shot against a back-projection, just a black background (or white in one case!).

The cast aren't much cop but this is mostly the fault of the material than them. Finocchiaro gives Angela no character and cannot lift the script at all; also, for my money she isn't good-looking enough to justify the script's many references to her beauty. Pupella is poor and Di Stefano lacks any presence at all – both of them just fill the screen with nothing to work with, performances fitting the nature of the whole film.

Overall this is a fairly weak film that has little value other than the bland telling of a true story that I (and I suspect, many others) will not have heard of outside of this film. The direction is poor and the script is all over the place – totally failing to involve the audience. The episodic nature of the film just makes these problems all the more pronounced and I couldn't have cared less about the story by the time it ended. A rare misfire for BBC4's selection of films and a generally poor film.

shoe store.... not really (minor spoilers)

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 28 March 2020]

Angela (Dona Finocchiaro) runs a shoe store in Palermo. which is also the front for the family drug business. When they deliver the shoes to clients, there are expensive little goodies stuffed into them. we learn pretty early on that the polizia are watching. Angela and her husband (Mario Pupella) bring on a helper Masino (Andrea Di Stefano), to make sure paying customers keep paying. it's well done, and pretty straight forward, a "fictionalized documentary". the cops move in, and hubby goes off to prison. which leaves Angela and the younger, cuter Masino to comfort each other. Hubby gets wind of this, and is not happy. good stuff.. no big surprises, but everyone does a good job. showing on Cinemoi channel. Directed by Roberta Torre. some confusion in profiles for Torre on different web sites; we see a mix of pronouns used, but this may have just been from confusion over use of the proper pronouns in english.

excellent visuals and language

[arzewski · 9/10 · 8 February 2007]

I was impressed with the accurate language, dialect, ways of speech, locations. Even the fashion was more in tune with the early 80's. A lot of detail went into recreating the same look and feel of twenty years before. Even the sunglasses of the undercover cops, they seem so out of fashion now. The terminology is very accurate and this re-creation looks very real. To stay close to the real story, there is not much fantasy or bizarre plot. The music is more of a support to the images, which tell you exactly how things are. Was impressed to see that for film making, the penitentiary Ucciardone allowed filming. Very nice visuals of driving from inside a Fiat 500, so, in a kind, this one has a special place for Retro lovers.

how we live

[manpiglet77 · 20 January 2007]

What a wonderful film this is! To other reviewers who were less enthusiastic, I can only say: your prince charming is a dead man walking. The camera stays very close to the actors throughout, making the experience uncomfortably claustrophobic, and knowing from the beginning that the characters are under police surveillance heightens the anxiety even more. All the usual cinema verite devices serve perfectly, the performances are utterly convincing, the deluge pitch-perfect, the story is gripping from beginning to end, and unutterably sad--and the lovers are gorgeous. There is nothing pretentious or contrived about this movie. So what more do you want?