Orson Welles once said there are 52 million great actors in Italy, none of them work in films. Cards on the table. I am an Italian. I write movies and act in movies and there are some moments in Italian movies that are like no other. New moments. Acts of inspired imagination. Leone had them by the yard. Fellini the same. I could name a dozen. But this film is nothing more or less than two and a half hours of soft porn and cheap emotions. If you like a lot of simulated copulation and have hours of nothing better to do, then this one is for you. But it is sure as hell not one for me. Time to go and check out Bitter Rice to take the taste out of my mouth.

This 148-minute (far too long) film is so confusing that you're not sure at times if you're watching a film in 'real' time or watching flashbacks on flashbacks.The movie is based on two real characters -- actors Luise Ferada (Monica Bellucci) and bombastic Osvaldo Valenti (Luca Zingaretta) -- who were big movie stars in fascist Italy before and during the Second World War. Despite the film's length, their motivations and personalities are never really explored. We know that they're cocaine users and so consumed with themselves that they are basically indifferent to the fascism that ultimately does them in. This is a film that should be alive with the frenetic tempo and intrigue of the times, but it's instead oddly static. It is difficult to imagine at times that a war is going on all around the many characters who weave in and out of the frames -- so many in fact that the viewer starts losing track of who is a fascist, who is a resistance fighter (partisan) or who, like the lead characters, is basically a person who doesn't much care one way or the other. This film should have been far more interesting, engrossing and exciting, but it settles instead for a confusing love affair and a strange, leisurely pacing that undermines the film throughout. The director, Marco Giordana, must take responsibility for this.

I had read the other reviews here, and considered the film worth a viewing, though without high expectations.I was very disappointed. (However I think the criticism of Bellucci is a little harsh: her character as written and directed was so asinine that it seems unfair to complain that she played 'a sofa' as 'a sofa'!) The cutting to flashback (another comment on IMDb) was about the only feature which was interesting about this film. At least it kept me awake! For me, an immeasurably better portrayal of fascist 'minor celebrities' and their cocaine habits is to be seen in Bertolucci's Millenovecento. I appreciate that Bertolucci's masterpiece is better remembered for 'the goodies' Gerard Depardieu and Sterling Hayden - but Act II gets to grips with the other aspects of the Mussolini regime, and the excesses of the 'favoured'.

Unfortunately the interesting topic chosen by Giordana, and the quite good acting by Zingaretti have been wasted due to the terribly poor acting of Bellucci. That she wasn't really an actress I suspected, as she was always only _shown_ in US films, and they never allowed her to utter more than a few words; now I can see why. She's as expressive as a sofa, as passionate as a brick, as professional as somebody who has never even seen a film. What a pity! With one of the good actresses who work in Italian cinema today (for example Vittoria Mezzogiorno) it could have been a very good film, though, compared to the other Italian movie at Cannes, Gomorra, we are in a different, lower league. Garrone is a real film director; Giordana is a gifted TV director (in fact his best thing so far is a TV series, La meglio gioventù). Once again: what a pity. What a waste.