SUMMER IN ITALY at TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West). Full programs and showtimes at tiff.net. Rating: NNNN
It’s Summer In Italy at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Again.
Okay, that’s a little unfair. TIFF Cinematheque does bring the European masters out of the vault at the drop of a hat, but it’s been four years since their Italian neo-realism series, which included a few of the titles returning to the Lightbox this summer, like Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, which kicks off the program Saturday (June 27).
I can’t complain too much the Italian new wave produced many works of legitimately great cinema, and any series that puts films as sumptuous as Amarcord (June 30), The Leopard (August 8) and The Conformist (August 27) up on a big screen is by definition justified.
Also, as a TIFF publicist helpfully pointed out to me, think of all the kids who weren’t old enough to get into the 18A-rated screenings of Red Desert (July 21) and La Dolce Vita (August 1) the last time around!
That said, if you’ve already seen most of the films on TIFF’s list, try focusing on the rarities. There’s a new 4K restoration of Luchino Visconti’s Sandra (July 9), starring Claudia Cardinale in an update of the Elektra myth. And a concurrent retrospective of Vittorio De Sica, More Than Life Itself, screens rare prints and new restorations of everything from Marriage Italian Style (July 4) to Shoeshine (August 6).
That series starts Friday (June 26) with the classic moral drama Bicycle Thieves. Sure, TIFF’s screened that a bunch of times, too. It’s still a masterpiece.
