Be Italian: A "Nine" Review

I know I said I would write an Iron Man 2 review... but I feel like I'm not enough qualified to write about it. I haven't read "The Demon in the Bottle" (shame on my... the comic book is just a few steps away in my brother's bedroom...) Well, I'll read it and maybe I'll write something about it. Maybe I'll translate my "bastard"step brother's review into English, if he allows me. He's a specialist. Haha!

Back to the subject... Nine... Nine...  Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren. Got it? Now I can move on.

Nine is a musical, directed by Rob Marshal, the same guy who directed my fave musical ever (well, now I simply can't choose one) Chicago. First thing I want to talk about is how Marshal's musicals go on. It's not that almost ridiculous thing of people talking and suddently, out of nothing they go "Oh! Let's sing instead of talking." No. The songs in Marshal's musicals are played in another set, like a theatre and it's like the songs are only in the character's heads. So, the characters are talking and then the song starts to play and the scenes start to change, from the set where the character is to where the song is played. Specially in this movie, all the songs are inside Guido's mind, in his desilusions, in his search for the content of his new film.

Some facts

The musical is inspired by Federico Felini's film 8½. I can't say much about Felini's work since I only watched Satyricon and all I can say about that film is: What the hell?! Poor Petronius must have rolled in his tomb. LOL 

I thought that the name of the musical was "Nine" because of the women, I thought that were nine women in Guido's life, but when I watched it I obviously noticed that they are only seven. So, the real reason this is called "Nine" is, according to the author of the original Broadway musical, that if you add music to 8½ "it's like half a number more".

Stick to the point, Mariana.

Here's the deal: Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an Italian film-maker that made great movies in the begining of his career but after some total fails he's living his midlife crisis: He has ten days to start shooting his next movie and haven't written a word of the script and to add some more, this imature and spoiled man has to deal with the women of his life: his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penélope Cruz), his confident (Judi Dench), his fan (Kate Hudson), a prostitute from his childhood (Fergie), his muse and movie star (Nicole Kidman) and the spirit of his mother (Sophia Loren). 

Daniel Day-Lewis's appearence, after "Gangs of New York" and "There Will Be Blood", is quite a relief. I mean, it's nice to see him a little bit more handsome. His acting is, as always, impecable. You can tell it by his accent (and when he says the word "two" I think of this video.) and his expressions. You can almost feel what Guido's feeling. His performance is amazing, very active and atletic (in the extras they said he didn't use any doubles) so he's really acting, singing and jumping at once all around the set. Still, I can't compare his acting in this movie with his acting in the movies I mentioned before, maybe that's because Guido is lighter character. 

Some female characters are completely decorative but some with nice surprises. Fergie, who plays Saraghina, a crazy prostitute who was part of Guido's childhood is one of those. She doesn't speak a line! A single one! But what she's there to do, she does well. I may not like her own music but she's a great singer and her theme in Nine, "Be Italian" is simply all the Italian men stereotypes together and it's sang with incredible passion. The other decorative character is Kate Hudson's Stephanie, completely out of time (too 2000's for a film in the 50's) but a big surprise in the singing number, she sings passionately and very well.  

Now, the woman characters who matter. Judi Dench's number is the most "musical like"  but it's beautiful and fantastic. I believe she and Daniel showed well the chemestry between their characters. She's more than a confident, she's his couselour. Sophia Loren is literally the spirit of this movie, I can't think of another Italian actress to play this role but the woman scared the hell out of me with all that botox. She can't close her mouth while speaking!!!! Nicole's presence is almost oniric, in Guido's desilusions, in search for some inspiration.  She is his muse, his ideal woman, but as woman in love, she wants to be seen as she really is. She  has few scenes but big, big role. Her singing skills are no news, she's been in Moulin Rouge (in which people start to sing out of nowhere...)

The best acting in this movie goes to the wife and the mistress, Marion Cottllard and Penélope Cruz. Penélope has no limits, indeed. After that well deserved Oscar for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" another well deserved nomination! What the hell she did with her accent??? She simply turned her Castillian accent into a Italian accent perfectly. She's funny, comic. She's obsessed with that man, she wants more of him (as all women in his life) but she can't handle to be his wife. Penélope's number is stunning (my poor brother, a huge fan of hers was stucked in the couch) and her singing is amazing.

I'm a fan of Marion Cotillard since La Môme. She has this capacity of changing from character from character and La Môme impresses because she changes a lot in one movie and with so many tiny details like hands, shoulders, spine curvature and facial expressions, voice tone. In Nine, you can feel how much her character loves her husband but can't stand the feeling of being left behind all the time, of living a sort of lie. She sings one of the trickest and surely the saddest song of the film (My husband makes movies) and she does that so naturally that we think that's so easy, and then as if it wasn't enough she sings and dance beautifully in "Take it All" and that's when Guido see's that he can't make the movie and he's forced to grow up.

A interesting thing on this movie is Guido's creative process. Beside all the desilusions that end in nothing, I mean. He really grow up and start to connect with his interior child. It is this child who really inspires him, in this child rests his geniality, and from the moment he grows up, stop to consider himself the center of the world, when he finally reconect with this child, he starts to be the great film-maker he is. Now, I must see if Felini's 8½ is a real master piece.

p.s.

JOKE OF THE DAY: The MTV Movie Awards. 

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