CARO DIARIO Movie Review

Dear Diary

Some movies—like certain wines—need to be consumed in their country of origin for their full flavor to be revealed. Put another way, some pictures just don't travel well, and that would seem to be the case with the gentle comic essays of Italy's acclaimed and popular (at home) Nanni Moretti, who is still largely unknown in the U.S. Despite its limited American release, Moretti's Caro Diario (Dear Diary) may be his best known film here, having been picked up for distribution after winning a Best Director Prize at Cannes. Though its pace proved too leisurely for American art house audiences, Caro Diario is an intriguing little three-part cinematic sketch pad of observations, confessions, and complaints. In the first section, Moretti (as Moretti) zips around Rome on his little motor scooter, at one point encountering Jennifer Beals on the street, and later visiting the spot where writer/director Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered. Moretti travels south in the clever part two, to spend time with a friend whose aversion to television soon becomes an addiction. The final section reveals that Moretti has been battling skin cancer, but deals with the fact in the same dryly witty manner as the rest of the film's observations, refusing to milk it for sympathy. (Nevertheless, I remember mentally kicking myself at that point in the film for being impatient with the first section, and that subtle “guilt” factor may one reason that the film was distributed more widely than Moretti's other, equally good work). One inspired highlight in this generally sweet and insightful picture: Moretti reads a rave review of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, buys a ticket, hates the picture, and then tracks down the critic, forcing him to listen to his own pretentious review. How could any reviewer of Caro Diario be unkind to such a humbling, cautionary tale?

NEXT STOP … Palombella Rossa, Fellini's Roma, Sherman's March

1993 100m/C IT Nanni Moretti, Renato Carpentieri; D: Nanni Moretti; W: Nanni Moretti; C: Giuseppe Lanci; M: Nicola Piovani. Cannes Film Festival '94: Best Director (Moretti).VHS, LV NLC