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“Grazia is a mother of three who spends suffocating days packing fish while
her husband Pietro is at sea. Her oft-erratic behavior leads Pietro into
thinking she may need medical attention, and he prepares to send her off to a
psychiatric institute in Milan. Their son Pasquale, the one person who
understand his mother the most, vows to do whatever it takes to foil his
father's plan.”
Wow,
that plot outline makes the movie seem like an exciting, and moving story that
would be sure to win over almost anyone who was to watch it. Pity that’s not
true. Respiro is unfortunately quite dull, and none too moving for that matter
either. The movie does clearly point out that Grazia certainly has it hard,
and that her husband and kids are type which should probably have been drowned
at birth. The problem is, there’s just no feeling to it all. Well no, that’s
not entirely true; you do get a strong sense of loathing for pretty much
everyone in the movie but Grazia, but not much else.
The
acting throughout is quite good, as is the script (although neither are
spectacular), so I find it hard to point out exactly where it’s gone wrong.
Personally I think I have to just put it down to some movies have it, and some
don’t. And this movie doesn’t have it.
Presented in 16x9 (1.78 aspect ratio) the
picture is lacking a little in the sharpness stakes, and there is a reasonable
amount of grain throughout (not too distracting though). I did however notice
a lot of film artifacts through the movie and too much edge enhancement (a way
of making the image look sharper than it really is, mainly used for VHS). On a
positive note, the colors are nicely presented, although mainly washed out
(clearly a decision made by the director, and of no fault of the transfer),
but there was no color bleed.
Although being a 5.1 channel mix, Respiro is
mainly dialogue driven, therefore almost never using the surrounds or
subwoofer, but you can’t really expect anything more. The voices appear clear
(It’s all in Italian, so I can’t be certain), and whatever background noise
there is (mainly the sound of scooters) also appears to be quite accurate.
All together this is not a very inspiring
selection of extras. The filmographies are nice to have (do you remember back
in the good “old” days of DVD when that was considered a big deal?), but in
this day and age you should be able to expect more. Not altogether bad, but
also not terribly good.
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3 filmographies (Valeria Golino, Vincenzo
Amato and Emanuele Crialese)
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A photo gallery containing 8 photos from the
production
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Theatrical trailer for Respiro
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Plus 4 other International Trailers (The
Best Man’s Wedding, My Wife is an Actress, Time Out, and Read My Lips)
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