La grande bellezza

Saw a great movie last night: La grande bellezza. The Great Beauty is an Italian film by Paolo Sorrentino. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

It was like a Fellini film—a good Fellini film: spectacle, fractured narrative, lurid characters, farce. Stylish, scenic. Roma! Then honesty; sadness; laugh-out-loud, tear-streaming humor; and, at last, surpassing beauty. Best, most moving film I've seen in years. YEARS! I'm not sure a film like this could be made in Hollywood. It's a completely different sensibility. I urge you to see it if it comes to a theater near you. No critique, merely a recommendation. We will be seeing it again.

It's better on the big screen, magnificent, in fact; but I noticed that Comcast has it in its On Demand section.

The soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission. So I recommend seeing it in theater with a really good sound system.

Here's Kronos Quartet playing Vladimir Martynov's "The Beatitudes" which threads throughout the film. First time I'd heard it. Brought a welling of tears to my eyes.



Likewise, Arvo Pärt's "My Heart's in the Highlands" performed by Else Torp and Christopher Bowers, based on the poem by Robert Burns.