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Solino

With easily digestible, Italianate charmer "Solino," helmer Fatih Akin completes his move to mainstream. Yarn, about a southern Italian family that moves to a gray mining region of Germany in the '60s, is the first the director has made from someone else's script; result is a slick, entertaining study of family. Overseas action in smaller markets and on cable looks likely.

With the easily digestible, Italianate charmer “Solino,” helmer Fatih Akin completes his move into the mainstream and away from the tougher, grungier style of “Short Sharp Shock” that first brought him to notice. Straight up-and-down yarn, about a southern Italian family that moves to a gray mining region of Germany in the ’60s, is the first the German-born Turkish director has made from someone else’s script; but despite (or maybe because of) that, result is a slick, entertaining, if never very original, study of family and roots. Helped by the presence of local names Moritz Bleibtreu and up-and-coming Barnaby Metschurat, business has been pleasant on home turf, and some overseas action in smaller markets and on cable looks likely.

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Akin already signaled his mainstream ambitions with his last feature, “In July” (2000), an engaging road movie with juicy parts for Bleibtreu and Christiane Paul as two characters winding their way from Hamburg to Istanbul. Though “Solino” lacks the previous pic’s more inspired (and magical) moments, it’s a much tighter and better-paced movie, despite its longer running time. Narrative-driven film shows a deft hand at rapid, but not hurried, brush strokes that move things along without any diversions.

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It’s 1964 in the lazy town of Solino, somewhere in the heel of Italy, and the Amato family, comprised of father Romano (Gigi Savoia), mom Rosa (Antonella Attili) and young sons Giancarlo (Michele Ranieri) and Gigi (Nicola Cutrignelli), up roots and take the train to Duisburg, in Germany’s dull Ruhr region, in search of work. However, Romano soon tires of the coal mines, so Rosa has the wheeze of opening an Italian restaurant, which they name after their home town.

While the eatery thrives, the kids are left to their own resources. Younger brother Gigi quickly learns to speak German, becomes fascinated by photography, and then – thanks to a visiting Italian film director (lugubrious Vincent Schiavelli, in theatrical mode) – by the movies.

At the 40-minute mark, film flashes forward to 1974, and Romano wants his grown sons to follow him into the restaurant biz. They, however, are more into partying and girls – especially blonde Johanna (Patrycia Ziolkowska), with whom they end up sharing a grungy apartment but not, for the time being, her bed. Meanwhile, Gigi starts a nascent career as a filmmaker by making a short that gets selected for a local film festival.

However, when various problems force Gigi’s return to Solino along with his mother, the family starts to fracture from underlying tensions. A final section, set in 1984, wraps the parcel up neatly.

Film develops a slightly darker edge soon after the midpoint, but it’s only a temporary hiccup in the generally benign proceedings. Though Giancarlo is shown as the more feckless, overshadowed brother, despite his macho posturing, even the fraternal strife that drives the pic’s third act is lightly resolved. As Gigi rediscovers his Italian roots back in Solino with a childhood girlfriend (Tiziana Lodato), the film even skirts dangerously close to “Cinema Paradiso” territory.

Both Metschurat and Bleibtreu, in their different ways, are convincing as German-raised Italians, though it’s a bit of a stretch that they actually speak to each other in Deutsch. After starting off as florid, pantomime Italians, Savoia and Attili settle into their roles later on. Both Ziolkowska and Lodato are good as the two girlfriends, the former with a pragmatic, north German edge and the latter with an Italian small-town sensibility. Cutrignelli is first-rate as the young, wonder-struck Gigi, through whose eyes the first act unfolds.

Jannos Eolou’s sunny, Mediterranean score keeps things bubbling along, and other technical credits are pro, including production and costume design for the three time periods.

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Solino

Germany

  • Production: A Wuste Filmproduktion/Wuste Film West production, in association with WDR, Arte, Bavaria Film, Multimedia Film & Fernsehproduktion. (International sales: Bavaria Film Intl., Munich.) Produced by Ralph Schwingel, Stefan Schubert, Hejo Emons. Co-producers, Michael Weber, Ute Kraemer, Claudia Schroeder. Directed by Fatih Akin.
  • Crew: Screenplay, Ruth Toma. Camera (color), Rainer Klausmann; editor, Andrew Bird; music, Jannos Eolou; art director, Bettina Schmidt; costume designer, Lucia Faust; sound (Dolby Digital), Kai Luede; casting, Sabine Schwedhelm, Ingeborg Molitoris, Beatrice Kruger. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (German Cinema), Feb. 10, 2003. Running time: 124 min.
  • With: With: Barnaby Metschurat, Moritz Bleibtreu, Antonella Attili, Gigi Savoia, Tiziana Lodato, Patrycia Ziolkowska, Hermann Lause, Nicola Cutrignelli, Michele Ranieri, Vincent Schiavelli. (German, Italian dialogue)

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