Boom
Among the most savage and surreal of Italian comedies...vibrant, funny, and disturbing.
Il Boom
Rialto Pictures' new restoration of Vittorio De Sica's unseen black comedy IL BOOM, a satire of Italy's economic boom of the 1960s starring the great Alberto Sordi (I Vitelloni, Mafioso, The White Sheik, etc.), is a biting satire made even blacker by Piero Piccioni's persistently perky score, and scripted by De Sica's longtime collaborator Cesare Zavattini (Shoeshine, The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D., Gold of Naples, etc.), IL BOOM was never officially released in the United States, and has been screened here only a handful of times. Laemmle Theatres' run will be among the film's first long-run engagements in the U.S., with a brand new English translation and subtitles by Michael F. Moore and Bruce Goldstein.
Giovanni Alberti (Sordi), a mid-level executive during the economic boom following World War II, goes to absurd lengths to maintain his and his wife's (Gianna Maria Canale) standard of living. When Signora Bausetti (Elena Nicolai), the wife of a wealthy industrialist, makes him an offer that would wipe out all of his debts, Giovanni is faced with an eye-popping dilemma.
"AMONG THE MOST SAVAGE AND SURREAL OF ITALIAN COMEDIES...De Sica and Zavattini draw both humor and pathos. It's that combination of qualities — real people, caught in a surreal world, reacting in recognizable ways to a society rapidly spinning out of control — that makes IL BOOM so vibrant, funny, and disturbing." — Bilge Ebiri, The Village Voice
"A CATHARTIC EXPERIENCE...At the climax of the story, IL BOOM edges toward suspense, even sci-fi horror, and the actors never overplay the sequence as it becomes large-scale physical comedy, making the unexpected ending all the more poignant and somewhat chilling." — Eric Monder, Film Journal International
"A BITTERSWEET SATIRE OF THE WIFE-SWAPPING, TWIST-DANCING, GET-RICH-QUICK LIFESTYLE!" — Kate Stables, Sight & Sound
Giovanni Alberti (Sordi), a mid-level executive during the economic boom following World War II, goes to absurd lengths to maintain his and his wife's (Gianna Maria Canale) standard of living. When Signora Bausetti (Elena Nicolai), the wife of a wealthy industrialist, makes him an offer that would wipe out all of his debts, Giovanni is faced with an eye-popping dilemma.
"AMONG THE MOST SAVAGE AND SURREAL OF ITALIAN COMEDIES...De Sica and Zavattini draw both humor and pathos. It's that combination of qualities — real people, caught in a surreal world, reacting in recognizable ways to a society rapidly spinning out of control — that makes IL BOOM so vibrant, funny, and disturbing." — Bilge Ebiri, The Village Voice
"A CATHARTIC EXPERIENCE...At the climax of the story, IL BOOM edges toward suspense, even sci-fi horror, and the actors never overplay the sequence as it becomes large-scale physical comedy, making the unexpected ending all the more poignant and somewhat chilling." — Eric Monder, Film Journal International
"A BITTERSWEET SATIRE OF THE WIFE-SWAPPING, TWIST-DANCING, GET-RICH-QUICK LIFESTYLE!" — Kate Stables, Sight & Sound
Genre
Comedy,
Auteur Cinema,
Repertory
Runtime
88
Language
Italian
Director
Vittorio De Sica
Cast
Alberto Sordi
FEATURED REVIEW
Eric Monder, Film Journal International
Vittorio De Sica’s canon is a such a mix of light comedy and heavy drama that it is hard to find a unifying element, which is all the more complicated by the fact that the director also frequently acted in other director’s films (most notably Max Ophuls’ 'Earrings of Madame De…,' 1953). For those ...
Played at
Fine Arts Theatre 7.21.17 - 8.03.17
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