Color, R (mature situations, language), 95 min., PPV 75 days, VHS rental, DVD $29.99, Danish and Italian with English subtitles
Street: Oct. 15, Prebook: Aug. 20
First Run: L, Jan. 2002, <$4.4 mil.
Cast: Anders W. Berthelsen (Mifune), Ann Eleonora Jorgensen, Anette Stovelbaek, Peter Gantzler (Smilla's Sense of Snow), Lars Kaalund
Director: Lone Scherfig
MIRAMAX/BUENA VISTA
Story Line: A group of single, thirtysomething Danes find an escape from their otherwise routine lives in an introductory course in Italian. The arrival of a new pastor (Berthelsen) in the community and the appointment of a hot-tempered restaurant manager (Kaalund) as the new class instructor causes romance to flourish among several members of the class.
Bottom Line: Scherfig's arthouse hit is a sensitive, intelligent and brightly amusing treatment of middle-aged loneliness and its only cure-namely romance. The characters are sketched quickly and deftly to the extent that--the hoariest cliché, but true in this case-they seem like old acquaintances by the time the film reaches its delightful, Venice-set finale. Italian has the added distinction of being the most accessible item produced under the "Dogma manifesto," a set of rules created by filmmaker Lars Von Trier and cohorts that stipulate a filmmaker must use a minimalist technique (handheld digital video, natural lighting, ambient music and so forth) to create a "purer" form of cinema. Unfortunately, the film-look approach applied to this feature for theaters is gone on home screens, and the proceedings occasionally resemble a reality TV series. In spite of this, Italian deserves a major push to renters of smart, adult love stories (think Woody Allen and Eric Rohmer). --Ed Grant