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Zabladowski
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Certi bambini (A Children's Story) (2004)
26. Jun 2004 at 23:08
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In less than a week another of the "A" list film festivals starts in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic.
One of the offerings that looks interesting is
Certi bambini. It sounds very similar to Vito and the Others.

Eleven-year-old Rosario lives in a cheerless apartment in the suburbs with his sick grandmother who spends most of the day in bed. He and a couple of friends spend time slacking off between a dive pub and the Las Vegas gambling joint. They smoke, drink and steal, imitating the worst of the adult world they see around them. The laughter that once graced their faces as children has been replaced by a queer, ambiguous smile bearing witness to myriad painful experiences. The makers of A Children’s Story (based upon the novel by Diego De Silva) have placed incidents from the boys’ lives in extensive flashbacks, mental flights Rosario embarks upon during long subway rides. With every new abrupt closing of the train doors, the boy drags us into his recent past and presents the three most influential people in his life: the admired Santino, the feared Damiano and the alluring Caterina. This fascinating film bears cruel witness to how easy it is for a troubled child to get mixed up in Naples camorra.

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Re: Certi bambini (A Children´s Story) (2004)
Reply #1 - 27. Jun 2004 at 00:48
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If this one comes with English subtitles, I'm buying. Smiley

Just based on your recommendation, Zab.  Oh... and the pic you posted.  Smiley

Love,
Sir J
  
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cal-Q-L8
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Re: Certi bambini (A Children´s Story) (2004)
Reply #2 - 01. Jul 2004 at 06:35
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Thanks Zab,

I've added a profile:

I couldn't find an official site for the movie, nor could I ID the boy actors, so if anyone can help out it would be appreciated.
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Re: Certi bambini (A Children´s Story) (2004)
Reply #3 - 02. Jul 2004 at 13:34
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I have found out that Gianluca Di Gennaro plays Rosario. His credit for this film will be added to IMDB shortly.
  
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Re: Certi bambini (A Children´s Story) (2004)
Reply #4 - 02. Sep 2006 at 02:44
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Gianluca Di Gennaro is very good but he looked more like a 13 year old than an 11 year old. There's nothing new here, and the film has a somewhat nasty taste to it. Worth a look but also worth remembering that it's a designer film with a lot of contrived situations.

I rate it a 7/10

Slant Magazine, gives IMO a fairly accurate review of this film:

According to Certi Bambini, life in Italy's impoverished streets hasn't changed much since the days of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Accattone and Mamma Roma, which is not to say that Andrea and Antonio Frazzi's first feature is at all the kindred spirit of Pasolini's neorealist-inspired masterpieces. Unlike Gabriele Muccino, the Frazzis don't make human misery seem fashionable, but there's still something disingenuous—dare I say coy—about the way they evoke the horrors of their character's lives. Early in the film, a pimp walks out of a bathroom stall and zips up his pants; seconds later, a little boy under his watch emerges from the stall, washes his mouth out with water, and says a quick hello to his friend, Rosario (a wonderful Gianluca di Gennaro), who should be used to seeing this kind of thing by now. Short of flashing a Godard-style intertitle that reads "Old Man thingy - Little Boy Mouth" on the screen, the filmmakers make it impossible to miss the implications of the scene via a spectacle of alternately glum and angry eye contact between the three characters. One of the pleasures of revisiting a great film like Accattone is watching the way a confident Pasolini makes the tragedy that befalls a down-on-his-luck pimp seem matter-of-fact—even in Mamma Roma, in which Anna Magnani's titular character is always performing, the actress's fever-pitched hysteria doesn't seem to exist for the audience's benefit but as an expression of her character's tormented soul. But Certi Bambini is all show. From the intense Frogger-style road crossing that opens the film to the psychotropic, MTV-style flashes that structure the film as a series of flashbacks leading up to the moment when Rosario boards a train for a destination unknown, the film's visual frills betray the reality of its main character's hard knocks life, suggesting the filmmakers don't trust in the material enough to simply let it be. And what's the use in believing in a reality that doesn't believe in itself?

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