Italian for Beginners (2000)

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Blistering performances.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Italian for Beginners (2000)A very sweet, romantic, warm movie about a bunch of slightly lonely, slightly misfit Danes who meet through an Italian class. There is a dysfunctional church (probably not uncommon in Denmark), a quaint bakery, a hairdresser's, and so on, adding to a kind of small town reality where everything has conviction.As much as this is all good--and it is good, if not great--it's also decided low budget in a kind of clunky way. The acting is fine--people are themselves, I suppose, or like fairly normal people--and the story line is cute and clever. But the filming and direction borders on a really good home movie. It's a 97 minute affair of course, and doesn't feel thrown together or amateurish, merely so simple and plain, visually, it becomes conspicuous.But if you can just enjoy the interpersonal lives, and some budding love affairs (and who can't), and a final section in Venice, you might find it a sweet joy.

In a small Danish town six lonely people are brought together by a beginners' course of Italian language: Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen) is a recently graduated minister who moves in the town to temporarily replace the erratically behaving previous minister; Finn (Lars Kaalund) works in a restaurant with an Italian woman named Giulia (Sara Indrio Jensen); Jørgen Mortensen (Peter Gantzler) is a quiet hotel clerk and Karen and Olympia (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen and Anette Støvelbæk) work as a barber-hairdresser and a bakery worker respectively. Despite initial setbacks on the course, the group eventually learns to approach each other, and relationships of different kinds are formed.The Dogme influence is most notably evident in the use of hand-held cameras and natural lighting, but over all Italian for Beginners is much softer and accessible in tone than the other films of the Dogme school that I've seen. A major theme is overcoming feelings of insecurity, as all of the characters have their own reasons to keep other people at arm's length at first. In the case of Karen and Olympia it is a difficult relationship to a parent, but for example Finn tends to hide his real feelings under tough and rash behaviour. All of the main characters feel rather polished and even exaggerated at first, but as the movie's empathic style becomes more obvious, the way of presenting their personalities becomes more understandable and very sympathetic.At the end of the day, Italian for Beginners belongs among the better romantic dramas I've seen. The actors fit in their roles well, especially Lars Kaalund as the aggressive Finn and Peter Gantzler as the humble and mild-mannered Jørgen. The quiet, oppressed women Karen and Olympia are also excellently portrayed by Jørgensen and Støvelbæk. Even though the sparse Dogme stylization initially creates a bleak and discomforting atmosphere, the dark aura soon makes way for a down-to-earth feel-good movie that concerns itself with realism on technical aspects only, not so much plotwise. As a result, I would recommend the film to any drama fan who likes a change from the bright world of many traditional screen romances.

"Italian for Beginners (Italiensk for begyndere)" is yet another of the 2001 movies for grown-ups about adults dealing with death. It shows how death in the family leads to loneliness, though not as light-hearted as indicated by the preview trailer.It is a poignant slice-of-life of a Danish town of misfits, in the earthy, gritty manner of "The Full Monty" or "Billy Elliott."Proudly flashing its minimalist Dogme 95 certificate (hence the lack of illustrative soundtrack songs), it has a warm-hearted understanding of the spectrum of human foibles.Here the woe-be-gone come together, improbably enough, at an Italian class in a local community center, with all that learning a romance language implies. At least that's what I could get out of it despite the older ladies behind me out for a matinée who decided that a sub-titled movie entitled them to talk loudly throughout, as well as kick my seat.(originally written 2/24/2002)

When I went to see Lars Von Trier's "Breaking the waves" years ago I coined a new film-genre: the Guilt-Flick. Since then, I only watched Dogme95 films to analyse their technique, because I have researched how to apply their "10 commandments" in depth at university. I am a micro-budget filmmaker myself - although I now Dogme95 isn't about budget. It can take a lot of money to look that cheap! Some of my Scandinavian friend attribute the grim atmosphere of the Dogme95 guilt-flick to the Puritanical influence. I can relate to the desire to show "life as it is" as a rebellion against special effects-laden Hollywood films, but the amount of unhappiness shown in the first half of this film nearly puts you off watching the rest of it. It is still a very gentle, beautifully edited and shot story (especially compared to the atrocious "Kingdom"), and the actors are talented and obviously well directed. (SPOILER COMING UP!) When the Italian classes lose their teacher, the local council gives the job to Halvfinn, who likes football so much he doesn't even know that "Penalty" in Italian is "Punizione" and not "Punire". What really baffles me is that there is an Italian girl in the village, Giulia, whose Italian is genuine (I know, I am Italian myself!), but she won't get the teaching job!!!! My partner objected that she couldn't get the job because she spoke little Danish, but so did the old Italian teacher. He is only on screen for a few minutes but would still drive you mad with stereotypes: he is trying it on with anything remotely female, his name is Marcello (yeah, like Mastroianni in "La Dolce Vita" and his surname is Mercoledi', Wednesday! Is this a clever pun on Robinson Crusoe or they couldn't be bothered looking up a more realistic-sounding Italian name? And Giulia - this is 2000, and she is praying (praying!!!!) that the man she fancies will like her new hair. That's ridiculous, and offensive for Italian girls in general and all the more so for the ones that chose to be religious. Giulia's character is some leftover from a 1950s romance, and should have no place in a story that strives so hard to be true to life. And as for Catholics not having sex before they're married... see "1950s romance" above! It is still a beautiful film, that manages to combine tragedy and comic moments in true melodrama style (the character of the old Pastor is fantastic!) and I recommend it to anyone who doesn't like the "exploding cars" film genre (you all know what I mean).