23/12/2005

After last week’s big wave , which included box office champion King Kong and two domestic films - Leonardo Pieraccioni’s Ti amo in tutte le lingue del mondo and Natale a Miami by Neri Parenti – the end of the year will belong to films that tackle so-called “family” themes. From the All-American family of Rumor Has It (distributed by IIF) to the syrupy sweet family of Bee Season, with Juliette Binoche and Richard Gere, to the gay families of Spanish comedy Queens (o.t. Reinas ).

The queens in the aforementioned film by Manuel Gómez Pereira are five mothers (plus a widowed father) in the throes of organizing their sons’ weddings. A very modern wedding, as the sons are homosexuals about to marry their respective partners. The director insists that Reinas was thought up and written before José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero [came to power] and gay marriage was legalized in Spain, making this a comedy and not a political film. Magnificent performances all around from the five mothers “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”: Verónica Forqué, Carmen Maura, Marisa Paredes, Mercedes Sampietro and Betiana Blum.

Then there are films dedicated to children: six years after the success of Kirikou and the Sorceress , one of the most sophisticated animated features of recent years, comes a new story on the tiny African hero: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (distributed by Mikado). Writer and director Michel Ocelot remembers how Kirikou just essentially overwhelmed him: "I had no intentions of making a ‘Kirikou II,’ but my little hero simply imposed his presence, without asking my opinion."

As of yesterday, Italian cinemas have also been invaded by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , a Disney film based on the book by Christian writer C.S. Lewis, which is proving a huge success among American neoconservatives. It is being distributed in Italy by BuenaVista.

(Translated from Italian)