You've got hand it to the Italians. They're not all worried about wearing their hearts on their sleeves, at least not in modern films made there. Witness the mushy brilliance of "Cinema Paradiso" and the more recent nostalgia-laden "Malena."
Silvio Soldini's "Bread and Tulips," which has a rhyming title lost in translation (it's "Pane e Tulipani" in Italian), fits well into the pack of fantasy-fueled, touching tales.
Clumsy Rosalba (Licia Maglietta) is on vacation with her loudmouth husband Mimmo (Antonio Catania) and their sons, taking in the sights of southern Italy on a coach tour. When the bus makes a pit stop, Rosalba is left behind. She opts to hitchhike back to her hometown of Pescara rather than wait for the bus to come back and pick her up.
When a man who picks her up learns she's never seen Venice, he offers to take her there. She zooms past the autostrada exits for Pescara and finds herself walking along the canals and amid the sights of Venice.
Her family has no idea where she is. When the bus returned to pick her up, she was gone. But she plans only on staying one night before returning home. Then she misses her train and extends her stay another night. On the way to the station the following day, she spies a help wanted sign in a florist's shop and gets the job.
In Venice she sheds her quiet, bored and oppressed housewife persona and reconnects with her love for music and makes friends with a local waiter, Fernando (Bruno Ganz), who offers her a room, and his neighbor Grazia (Marina Massironi), a wholistic masseuse. She also forges a warm relationship with her gruff boss, anarchist florist and aesthete Fermo (Felice Andreasi).
Although we never really know whether or not Rosalba is planning on going home, it feels like she's built a new life that offers her everything life at home has taken from her. But recurring dreams/hallucinations bring a parade of family members through her mind and we're reminded how conflicted she really is.
Mimmo, on the other hand, is not conflicted at all. He's confused, a little hurt and very irate. He hires Constantino (Giuseppe Massironi), a plumber, to serve as an amateur sleuth and go to Venice to bring her home.
We love Rosalba because we all, at some point, harbor a desire to run away and make a new life for ourselves; one that offers us new horizons, new glimpses into our souls and allows us to leave behind the mundane.
The entire cast shines and brings to life a fine script laced with humor, drama and depth. If this doesn't feel like the weightiest film of the year, it certainly feels like one of the most charming and sweet.
The scenes of Venice don't hurt, either.
Grade: A
"Bread and Roses" opens, Fri., Oct. 5 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre. Click here for showtimes.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
