Italian for Beginners (2000)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

A Masterpiece!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Had the chance to watch this on DVD last night and was completely taken by surprise. First,the most obvious unusual thing,the movie is on video-tape.Much like a PBS documentary or one of those more serious "reality" shows. Maybe a slight touch of foreign country soap-opera's as well.It should be no surprise that I thought,"As a film this can't possibly work in terms of drama or humor",since it's not on standard celluloid used in almost all films. Happy to say I was wrong. Every main character is very well fleshed out and very engaging. The females are fair to very strong characters and the men are very differing in character but none are caricatures or stereotypical movie males,thankfully. I felt the idea of all coming together because of a class in learning Italian was a fresh idea as well,including their eventual trip to Vienna itself. Quite simply,ten stars..... and I know I may just check this out more than once. (END)

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.

A lovely, feelgood film that manages to avoid being twee through several flashes of that dry, dark, Danish sense of humour; as well as a willingness to look at life's realities square on, without overt sentimentality, but with a tentative optimism.For those familiar with Dogme '95 this is proof that it doesn't always have to be vaguely disturbing or downright shocking truths that the medium wrings out of its characters and situations - life isn't always that bleak. For those not familiar with Dogme, this film presents a warm and inviting pool in which one may dip one's toe comfortably.The six lead characters are three-dimensional and likable, including Lars Kaalund's Ramseyan restaurateur Halvfinn. The support is a little more exaggeratedly drawn, but still sympathetic for the most part. The plot is uncomplicated (no prizes for guessing the minor twists) but none the worse for that - part of the Dogme vow of chastity is to avoid the horrendously contrived plot twists favoured by Hollywood today over proper character development or story (you know the usual suspects).One to watch with (teenage) offspring, parents, partners, business partners, potential clients, complete strangers... in fact, just about anyone who's around.

The Dogme 95 manifesto was a call for a return to a naturalistic style of film-making; but the first film made according to its principles, Lars von Trier's 'The Idiots', was a playful attack on every convention of film in spite of its basic technical nature. 'Italian for Beginners' is more like what one might expect a Dogme film to resemble, if one hadn't seen 'The Idiots' first: a portrait of everyday life, told without artificial over-embellishment. And it works. On one had, this is a story of the misery of lonely people living in a grey northern town; on the other, the shape of a potential happy ending is visible quite early on. And yet there's something believable in the performances, as well as a sly sense of humour, that enables the movie to transcend its modest proposition and genuinely warm the heart, a story of ordinary people regaining their confidence in life after hard times. If every film was like this one, you might find yourself longing for a bit more ambition; but in a world full of empty noise, it's nice to see a movie whose director seemed to care about making his film ring true.