Wednesday, December 01, 2004

SEE: Il Postino (1994)

You know what's the cheapest way to satiate the travel bug? Watch foreign films! So after visiting Brazil, the next destination was Italy.

Il Postino is a romantic comedy about a humble man named Mario who lives in a small island off Italy. One day, he decides to apply for a job as a mailman and gets hired to deliver mail for only one client, Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet who's been exiled to the island. Mario and Neruda soon strike up a friendship, and the poet gives Mario a few pointers on the art of writing poetry. Mario falls head over heels in love with Beatrice, a local beauty who works at the inn. With Neruda's help, Mario finds the right words to woo the beautiful Beatrice.

This is a sweet, sad, and also heartwarming story. Massimo Troisi did a marvelous job portraying the fumbling, shy Mario. Unfortunately, he passed away during the filming of this movie. I really enjoyed watching the development of the friendship between Mario and Neruda. Also, Spanish is spoken since Neruda after all was from Chile. I love hearing Spanish in movies now. The real treat is hearing snipets of Neruda's poetry here and there. While in Argentina, I picked up a copy of his Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada. I should get the English version as well to help me understand more. I could barely understand poetry in English and even less in Spanish.

Il Postino could be slow at times but some of the comic scenes are worth watching. Also, you get to see a great actor (Troisi) do his thing. Very impressive acting achievement.

::4 stars::