The Scene Club's latest film feature, It's About to Rain, is set in Florence, Italy, depicting an immigrant father and his Italian-born sons fighting against deportation to their native Algeria. The father has lost touch with Algerian culture, and his sons never had it in the first place.
It's an overall good movie. I liked the raw setting in the average home and street, rather than high culture and landmarks; the director confirmed during Q&A that this was a deliberate decision to make it possible for any Italian to relate to it. There was some really good choices with lighting evident in it as well. The only drawbacks were it pontificating a bit when the characters went over the legal issues, and what I think was overuse of montages.
The Q&A with Italian-born half-Italian half-Iraqi director Haider Rashid brought up some interesting points on the casting, writing and reception of the film. As expected, it attracted some ire from Italian right-wingers. Rashid also suggested that the treatment of Italian immigrants to other countries in centuries past should invoke empathy for modern-day immigrants to Italy. Naturally, the issue of expats living almost all their lives in the UAE (born and raised, in many cases) was brought up a couple of times. Rashid tactfully stayed away from opining on what would be the right thing to do, hoping instead to open the topic for discussion.
No comments:
Post a Comment