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Facing Windows

2003, Movie, NR, 106 mins

Facing Windows: Review

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The winner of four "Davids" — the Italian equivalent of the Oscars — including one for best film, Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek's drama blends history and mystery into an entertaining, if slight, romance. Rome, 1943: As Nazis round up as many Roman Jews as they can lay their hands on, a young baker stabs his employer to death and disappears into the night. Sixty years later, a disoriented, handsomely dressed elderly man (Massimo Girotti) approaches a young married couple on a bridge over the Tiber. The gentleman has no idea who or where he is, and the young husband, Filippo (Filippo Nigro), offers to drive him to the nearest police station. The wait, however, proves too long, so Filippo returns home to their noisy apartment building with the old man in tow, then leaves for his night-shift job fueling trucks. His high-strung, unhappy wife, Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), is furious at Filippo for leaving her and their two young children alone with a total stranger — the old man suddenly remembers the name "Simone" — but her anger has far deeper roots. Having set aside her dream of becoming a pastry chef to raise a family, 29-year-old Giovanna now works as an accountant in a poultry plant; the only reminder of her deferred dream is the pies and tarts she bakes twice a week for a local café. Left alone all night, Giovanna has also caught herself fantasizing about a different kind of life with Lorenzo (Raoul Bova), the handsome stranger in the apartment opposite. The two finally meet the next night when Giovanna, once again left alone with Simone, must make her pie delivery and has no choice but to bring the old man along with her. While she's collecting her money, Simone wanders off, unnoticed by anyone but Lorenzo, who's just leaving the café. After alerting Giovanna, they both follow Simone to a shuttered storefront that holds some deep, half-forgotten meaning for him. His memory sparked, Simone begins to remember fragments of a romance that occurred some 60 years earlier, an affair that was forbidden not because the lovers were both Jewish, but because they were both men. The film contorts itself a bit to parallel that past romance with the one developing between Giovanna and Lorenzo, but is affecting nonetheless. Girotti, who's perhaps best remembered for his turn as Gino, the handsome drifter in Visconti's OSSESSIONE (1943), died not long after production was completed on this film, and his performance is a fine finale to a long and industrious career. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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