Saturday, December 3, 2011

IL POSTINO (Italian) (1994)


‘Poetry doesn’t belong to those who write it, but those who need it.’

An enchantingly beautiful cinema full of positivity vibes about life that offers a bit of everything- poetry, politics, romance, sublime friendship, subtle humor, religious puns, soothing background score, natural landscape visuals, touching performances and above all fine metaphors of life.  A fisherman’s son Mario has curious inclination towards life and external world than being fisherman like his hard working father. He’s quite learned man and so turned to a post man’s job at a remote Italian small town clad with beautiful landscape of mountain and seashore. Here arrives a world famous poet Pablo Neruda on exile due to his communist leanings. Mario has to serve as delivery post man to him and he’s curious to know the reason of poet’s huge female fan following. As the sublime friendship between the poet and him grows, he’s fascinated with the idea of being poet as he feels that poets are loved by women. Mario is man of imagination lacking talent but the delightful company of poet and his poetry helps him to see life in different perspective with use of metaphors about life around that helps him to win the heart of his sweetheart. The exile is over and the poet returns to his homeland. Years passed and the poet returns to find the man who writes him a most treasured poem. The sublime end touches anybody’s heart where we witness the greatest poet yearning for a lost poem of his life!

Il Postino is an simple and moving Italian film full of heart and soul at right places that keep spreading genuine smiles and emotions on your face without any sort of unnecessary melodrama or overtly complex characters. Massimo Troisi deserves a posthumous award for this swansong performance of his life. It is sad to know that the man needs a heart surgery during the shoot of the film but his priority was towards finishing the film. It is tragedy that he passed away due to heart attack immediately after the shooting of the film is completed. I must say this is one of the most breathing natural act I’ve seen in Italian cinema; with his honest face and body language devoid of any direct or indirect screen presence consciousness he literally brought the naïve and innocent heart of postman so naturally on the screen. Philippe Noiret as poet Neruda is charismatic too and acted with so much ease.

At one point of the film, Mario simply said to Neruda, ‘This whole world is a metaphor for something else.’ So true!

Ratings-10/10 

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