Pablo Neruda gets to a small non-descriptive island in the south of Italy and asks the post office to have someone deliver his mail personally while in exile. Massimo Troisi is the mailman who plays a touching role of someone who in life actually wrote poetry.Philippe Noiret plays Neruda and the sweetheart of the southern Italian town is Maria Grazia Cucinotta.
There is a subplot on the front of an election about to occur on the island and it's link to organized crime, that is tied into the family that Massimo marries into. This is because during the water works proposal the elected party is about to support Massimo's in-laws are approached to serve food to the workers. The proposal falls through once the election folds.
Massimo has to deal with an overprotective aunt which follows the stereotypical control that used to be prevalent on small rural towns and may still be where the daughter is not allowed to venture off with a young man without family consent, or the suitor has to keep his hands off the young lady until the wedding day. Pablo Neruda gets caught unwittingly in this romantic romantic comedy as the inept postman approaches him for words of poetry to use in order to win the girl's love and acceptance.
The film is broken up with classic religious symbols that parallels the families importance and the necessity of the girl to comply with the rule of her elders. There is a moment that could have been touched on in the romance when his love is threatened by the aunt and then the film cuts to a brief romantic moment between the young lovers toying with a ping-pong ball they used during a table game at their first encounter. Then the suitors are already in the chapel with the priest about to give permission for Neruda to act as a witness. There is no confrontation directly between the aunt and Massimo on the liberty he has taken to meet his girl in private and one can only imagine that this was worked out behind the scenes.
What makes this a romantic comedy is the improbability of meeting the girl of your dreams if you can't say two words to begin with. Troisi portrays the simple-minded southerner with efficacy while Neruda is thrown into the comic soup because of the favor the postman asks to bring the two together and then since the aunt objects his asks Neruda to remove him from the generated embarrassment. Neruda complies and this seals the friendship enough so that he is asked to be the best-man even though, technically speaking communists were frowned upon to partake in church services. The stereotypical reaction of the priest to Neruda's participation and the straight-laced attitude of the aunt when reacting to the postman's poetry using naked metaphors add to the humor.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment