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The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Le conseguenze dell'amore (2004)is a beautifully made film that takes small carefully positioned steps towards its ending that need to be savoured in order to be enjoyed. From the contrasting landscapes, to the tightly enclosed world that the hero inhabits, we are taken by the Director and controlled from the very moment we enter the hotel. We, like the hero, will never escape from the suffocating intensity and paradoxical monotony of his criminally driven, Mafia world. That the film resists Mafia stereotypes whilst revelling in them makes it all the more successful. The concrete grave, the inevitable brutal executions and overwhelming maleness are laid bare and exposed for what they are. Just brutality and business, and no more. Life is about being part of the corporate machine that is organised crime and not about love or living for self, family or others. Our hero is indeed a hero in that he gives up his life for the sake of the touch of the beautiful barmaid, the resolution of the misery suffered by his only neighbours in the hotel and in order to escape his decorative prison. The consequences of love are indeed beautiful and brutal at the same time. See it!!

The movie is a really well made one, which is great and looking and passionately directed. You can tell that every shot is thought over and executed to perfection. For the lovers of cinema this is especially a great watch and they especially should be able to appreciate the beauty of it and the passion for cinema that is being put into it.It's hard to place this movie under one label. It's not really a drama, it's not really a thriller and it's not really a comedy. Instead its more a movie with its own style, that does things its own way. It doesn't necessarily follow the rules of cinema and features many different elements from many different genres combined.But just like the movie its main character, the movie gets sort of slow and boring in parts. The artistic style of directing tries to conceal that the story is actually a quite simple one and it's more as if the movie relied solely on its style and overall atmosphere created by the movie. It doesn't make the movie horrible or anything but it just prevents it from being a true absolute must-see. In parts the movie also feels as if it's trying to be too poetic and tries to let the images speak too much for itself. It just feels a bit overdone in parts, though for most part of the movie it still works out beautifully.It features some great camera-work and some unique storytelling, which makes this an original as well as a great film to watch.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I saw this interesting film back to back with the Chinese/French film "2046" at the recent Dubai Film festival. Both were intelligent works made the same year (2004/2005). Both had the main characters living in a "hotel". In both films, the hotel is more a metaphor of exile than a location. Both dealt with love between a man and a woman. Both had wonderful music and riveting performances. What a coincidence and yet how the two films differ in treatment of the subject! Somewhere at the beginning of the film, a man walking on a pavement turns to look at a woman and in doing so hits a lamp post. The audience erupts into a volcano of laughter innocently. But isn't that brief shot the synopsis of the film, that entertains you for 2 hours? While the film is a wonderful blend of black comedy (e.g., using a stethoscope to listen to a neighbor's conversation in the adjoining hotel room), the film builds on what Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati had introduced to cinema earlier--stoic faces that leads to comedy quite in contrast to the equally intelligent world of Robin Williams or the heartwarming Danny Kaye. A sudden frenzy of activity transforms an otherwise stoic character while moving money from the hotel to the bank is reminiscent of Tati's works.But the film is not mere comedy. The anti-automation statement (cash counting and the reaction of the bank staff to the statements relating to it, the dummy that acts as an ineffectual warning to the speeding lady, the reference to "Moulimix" as the fictitious "company" he works for, etc.) are several cues that the director is offering a loaded comedy to the viewer. Laugh, yes, but reflect on it and enjoy further..The movie's strength lies in is brief, staccato script (by director Paul Sorrentino) that offers comedy that is mixed with philosophy ("Truth is boring," "Dad is dead, but nobody told him," "Bad luck does not exist--it is the invention of the losers and the poor". Then the director goes on to provide you with a fascinating lecture from the main character on insomniacs. You will not sleep through this lecture.Sorrentino provides entertainment pegged to the subject the Italians know best--the Mafia. It is an existential mafia film.There is a loaded philosophical sequence where a young girl, sitting opposite the lead character Titta Di Girolamo, reads aloud a passage from a book: "Whatever he wants can happen. What a fine mess. That is the advantage of using memories to excite oneself. You can own memories, you can buy even more beautiful ones. But life is more complicated, human life especially so, a frightening, desperate adventure. Compared to this life of formal perfectionism, cocaine is nothing but a stationmaster's pastime. Let us return to Sophie.. We become poetic as we admire her being, beautiful and reckless, the rhythm of her life flowed from different springs than ours. Ours can only creep along, envious. This force of happiness both exciting and sweet, that animated her, disturbed us. It unsettled us in an enchanting way, but it unsettled us nevertheless. That's the word." The reaction of Titta to the passage is interesting. Titta is himself a cocaine addict. Titta looks at the barmaid of the hotel-his own "formal perfectionism." The following sequence is of Titta calling his own wife and daughter on the phone--a conversation filled more with silence than words. They, too, are Titta's "memories." The final sequence of the film is of Tittas' best friend Dino Guiffre working alone repairing a fault on an electricity pylon in biting wind in a snowy landscape--recalling his own best friend Titta. This is a film about friendship that transcends the mafia.Since "Truth is boring", the director provides a dessert as part of the fine meal of superb acting (Toni Servillo), good music, clever camera-work (Luca Bigazzi), a beautiful, enigmatic actress (Magnani, grand-daughter of the great, immortal beauty Anna Magnani) and powerful script. The dessert is for the viewer to figure out the truthful feelings of Titta, towards his family members, towards his hotel guests, towards the bar girl, towards the mafia, towards the bankers, towards the hotel owner, and towards his best friend Dino. (Assuming that the viewer accepts the eventuality of how Titta recovered his suitcase from the goons, how does he get inside his car and get it covered with its synthetic cover while he is still inside it?) Perhaps it is Sorrentino's admitted love for the literary works of Louis- Ferdinand Céline that has sculpted the character of Titta. The film's end will remain an enigmatic one for a reflective viewer.

Judging by the comments above , this film is almost unknown in America. This is the kind of " new' European movie that " scores' on the old continent. At least in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, not representative !) it had quite a moderate to good box office success. As a film-goer who grew up on the seventies diet of Visconti, Fellini, Antonioni, etc. (in the cinema that is, not on video...) (TV hardly ever shows this art) I do not see what is so important on this movie, or on another recent Italian top-hit in Holland, La Meglio Giuventu. Italian cinema may be on a comeback trail, but in my opinion the quality here is missing. I find this film highly confusing, and , main objection against it: as we say in Dutch, "putting the viewer on the wrong leg...". Who could think of a worse ending than the main character drowning in a classic Mafia concrete bath....., if I had seen this one in the cinema (I rented a DVD instead) I would have walked out sick....And then, what is the role of the bar maid (grand daughter of Magnani) ? We expect, by the title, a role for her in saving his life from the trap he is in right now. No, not to be. Conclusion: a bad script, a plot that takes crazy turns, but, as my colleagues here agree, great camera work, and a good main role . I rate it a 5,9 out of 10.