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Absolutely Fantastic

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY offers a novel and original approach to The Teen Genre. A timeless 'Coming of Age' tale is portrayed with truth and style, although the specifics of contemporary Italian politics lose a bit in translation, even a viewer who is ignorant of European politics is not left in the dark. Caterina (played by Alice Teghil) is a junior high school aged student who relocates to Rome with her family. Her father is a frustrated teacher who feels that his career has been sidetracked in the sleepy, coastal town of Monalto, and looks forward to the possibility of social and intellectual advancement in the big city. Soon, he runs up against the stratified nature of Italian society, and Caterina encounters the same setup, but within her school system. From her first day in class, she meets classmates who toss around political jeremiads which they don't really comprehend, but are very emotionally attached. Although, by the end of the school year, Caterina is moved and changed by her experiences, she seems to understand that these emotionally charged names and categories never tell the whole story, and really amount to passionate clichés. Paolo Virzì, the director, is known in Italy for his ability to examine the entrenched nature of Italian politics with humor and insight. CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY an intelligent look at what it is like to live in a stratified society, and to strive to locate your unique and proper place.

I wish I could say that this was a great film because there really were a lot of things that one could like about it.As it turns out, however, it is a good, but flawed film. I will give this film a recommendation, I think it is worth seeing.The film made a number of incredible social statements. It really cuts to the quick about the nature of society, the people who can manipulate the system on both sides are in collusion with each other to keep their privilege. The people who are on the outside find themselves on the outside, looking in. They can be taken under someone's wing but they are never really more then a pet, the Jimmy Olsen to someone's Superman.The film had spectacular acting, particularly from the lead.So what then keeps the film from being great? One of the biggest problems comes from the episodic and picaresque structure of the film. It has the kind of structure that is more interesting because of its discontinuity then because of its continuity. And while it makes for a lot of interesting discussions, this could turn a lot of people off, probably even more then the subtitles.Honestly, the problem is that it begins with Caterina being pulled in many directions and it allows us to see facets of her through these different social lenses. The trouble is that we never get a baseline reading on her in the beginning before she moves to Rome. This is done very well but we never get the impression of her as anything more then a tablet that the ideologies of others are being written on, even at the end of the film when she supposedly finds herself. I won't give a spoiler as to how but the ending that someone else commented was her in her element is really just another case of this.You know what, I've changed my mind. This is a wonderful film to watch. Its a spectacular way to look at what life is really like when you are outside the powerful and privileged circles of society and you can only be influenced by the ideologies of others but you really lack any voice of your own.Watch this along with Welcome to the Dollhouse and see what life was like for the rest of us. Let this film show you the social cliques, collusion and ideology and let Solondz show you the sheer cruelty of a society that, as J. G. Ballard said, normalized psychopathy. And see it for what it really is, not some sugarcoated network television version (I think you guys know what very popular television series I'm talking about).

Paolo Virzi's "Caterina va in citta" is a film where he decided to throw his own personal take in the Italian society of the present. Mr. Virzi is a director of talent. In this film, he decides to give us a disarming heroine, Caterina, who is at the center of two opposing factions, the left and the right.At the beginning of the film we meet Giancarlo Iacovani, who is a teacher in a northwest coastal town, perhaps in Tuscany. He is telling his boring students how he has hated them for making his life miserable while trying to teach them something, as he is bailing out to his native Rome, where he is finally been transferred.His daughter Caterina, the intense and earnest teen ager, is seen practicing in the chorus and she gets carried away singing the beautiful music she adores. She appears not too keen on the moving to Rome. The area where they are moving to seems to be a place where chaos reigns and where the apartments are so close to one another that the young girls can see all what's going on with all the neighbors across the street.As Caterina is going to start classes, a proud Giancarlo, is seen taking her to her first day of school at the same one where he has gone himself, years before. The class Caterina joins is an unruly place where the young people are clearly from two different factions, those with money and right wing sympathizers, or those with money but left wingers leaning into communism. Caterina is made feel unwelcome for sticking out as she doesn't belong with one group, or the other.Upon going home from the first day of school and showing her father Giancarlo the names of her classmates, he becomes impressed because most of the students seem to be connected to who's who in Rome! Caterina is accepted first by Margherita, the rebel with left wing parents. Caterina learns this girl has gotten rid of her father's manuscript, which he had sent to Margherita's mother, an editor. Then, Daniela, the leader of the opposite faction, takes her under her wing and sophisticates her appearance. At the end, Caterina realizes Daniella is no friend either. The affection that Daniela's cousin shows to Caterina is thwarted when her snobbish mother makes a point to tell him to stop seeing the provincial girl.The film keeps a fast pace that works for the movie. It seems that Mr. Virzi parallels the life in Rome to what we are seeing. The city, alas, has the wrong effect in Giancarlo, who is suspended from his teaching post and as he tries to fight for it, he is made aware he doesn't amount to anything and decides to take off on his own after he fixes his old motorcycle. It is clear at this point that Agata, the long suffering wife, has had it with his ups and downs as she finds solace with Fabietto, the kind bachelor friend.The best thing in the film is Alice Teghil, who, as Caterina, is seen exploring new things that ultimately can't compare with the life she had in the small town she came from, with all its problems and small mindedness. Sergio Castellito plays the strident Giancarlo, a man that comes unglued in pursuing his dream of returning to the capital with little success once he is there. Margherita Buy, a beautiful actress, has little to do as Agata, the long suffering wife of Giancarlo. She is the only sane person we encounter in the film.As the bad girls, Carolina Iaquaniello, is the grungy-Italian-style-like Margherita, the girl grown among the intellectual crowd. Federica Sberema, plays Daniela, the rich girl who is a mess and who moves with a fast crowd. The supporting cast do a good job.The best part is the ending in which we watch the radiant Caterina doing what she does best: singing to her heart's content!

I think Virzì is one of the most interesting director in Italy, at the present moment. His ability to portray the current Italian society is quite good, and he achieves this either with *characters* (the two families in "Ferie d'Agosto", the father in "Caterina va in città") and with *stories* (the story of "Ovosodo", a bit of an Italian "It's a wonderful life"... just a bit, obviously... :-)."Caterina va in città" is a good movie: the idea of showing chunks of the Italian society and habits through the eyes of an innocent teenager gives the movie a "fairy tale" twist that makes it really "light" and enjoyable. I also liked the mom's character, played by a really good and beautiful Margherita Buy: in general, I appreciated Virzì's idea that the "good" part of society is based on the strength of women, as all male characters in this movie either are donquixotesque losers or spoiled and arrogant over-grown babies.But, as for most of his movies, I think the same criticism again apply: Virzì is openly a left-wing director, but he stresses this a bit too much and sometimes its works sound too "ideological": art should make you think, not tell you what to think, I guess. In addiction, some characters are too stereotypical and don't come out of a really deep psychological analysis. Still, I think he is currently the director who knows best how to take on the screen what goes on in Italy.In conclusion, I think this movie - just like "Ovosodo" - is based on a simple yet powerful assumption: that happiness is the disease of the idiots...