Competition
The Best Man (Il testimone dello sposo)
Set on the last day of the last century in a small town in the Italian
province of Emilia Romagna, Il testimone dello sposo shows a wedding
banquet with the course of true love running far from smoothly. Angelo
(Diego Abatantuono) has recently returned from America - where everyone
assumes he has made his fortune - and has been asked to be the best man
for Edgardo's wedding with Francesca (Spanish beauty Ines Sastre). But
Francesca is not too pleased as hers is a marriage of convenience, rather
more her family's than hers, and when her eyes meet Angelo's during the
ceremony, another story is about to be written...
Pupi Avati made his debut as a director 30 years ago and his two dozen
features have embraced a range of subjects - from Mozart in Noi Tre to
Bix (Beiderbecke) - with characteristic humanity and gentle humour. "I
realised that in my whole body of work, I never made a true, big love story...
this is maybe due to a sort of prudishness towards something so delicately
important in our lives," the director explains. "In previous generations,
love was not an indispensable element, it was rather something to be kept
apart from marriage. There's a lot of personal history and memories in
this film. My grandfather emigrated to South America when he was a child
and returned home a Lira millionaire. True love is an irrepressible, out
of control, unexplainable impulse - I realised that the woman I married
was the woman of my life when I couldn't explain my feelings for her!"
An expert on family and other ritual events, the Bolognese Avati dishes
up his emotional ingredients with just the right spices to ensure the taste
lingers long after the party is over. Phillip Bergson
Synopsis
Pupi Avati's 28th film, and this year's Italian foreign-language Oscar
submisssion, Il testimone dello sposo (The Best Man), is set in a small
village in the Emilia region of northern Italy on the eve of the last millennium
(31 December 1899). Angelo has just returned home after 15 years in America
and it is rumoured he has brought back with him a huge fortune. Perhaps
because of this, the son of his former employer asks him to be his best
man. But, as the ceremony progresses, Angelo begins to notice the reluctance
of the bride (played by Spanish star Inès Sastre), who has been
forced into the marriage and now looks to Antonio to save her.
"Some people have never known what love is," says Avati, who has had
such films as Bix and Magnificat in competition at Cannes, as well as directing
the hugely successful Regalo di Natale (The Christmas Gift), which starred
Diego Abatantuono, who plays Antonio in The Best Man.
"They died without even knowing the existence of love. Our story is
the proof of how the sudden discovery of this feeling can upset the delicate
balance of our lives, sweeping everything and everyone up in its passion."
(Dir): Pupi Avati (Scr): Pupi Avati (Cast): Diego Abatantuono,
Inès Sastre, Dario Cantaretti, Valeria D'Obici (Running time): 106
Minutes
[Home ] [Content
] [The Team ] [Comments
]
