Don't miss "The Missing Star"

If you haven't seen it yet, make a mental note to catch "La stella che non c'è" ("The Missing Star") when it shows at a theater near you, or to grab it when it comes out on DVD. It's the newest movie by Italian director Gianni Amelio, a maestro.

The story in short: Vincenzo Buonavolontà (literally "Vincent Goodwill", played by a perfect Sergio Castellitto, picture below) is the maintenance manager at an Italian steel mill that has been shut down. In an old-vs-new-industrial-country theme, the furnace is being sold to China. Vincenzo knows of a potentially dangerous structural flaw in a control unit, tries to alert the Chinese, but can't get their attention and the furnace is shipped. Vincenzo is a worker who cherishes values that seem today regrettably out of fashion: loyalty, a job well done. He decides to travel to Shanghai, where he discovers that the furnace has already been resold by brokers who have little interest in what he has to say. With the help of a translator, Liu Hua (convincingly played by newcomer Tai Ling), he travels through the cityscapes and landscapes and industry-scapes of contemporary China searching for the furnace. Amelio clearly uses Vincenzo's quest (for the furnace as well as for himself, mirrored in Liu Hua's own tribulations) as an excuse for a quasi-documentary about today's China and its extreme paradoxes, immense scale, absurd contrasts and engaging growth. If you've never been to China, that's a reason by itself to see this movie.

Comments

[mir]

Visto, piaciuto molto. Non subito, però: è un film che piace dopo,ripensandoci. Comunque non fa venir voglia di andare a vivere in Cina, e questo un po' mi dispiace, incrina un mio vecchio sogno. meno male ne ho altri. E' considerato spam un simile commento ? Immagino di sì eheheh vabbè ;)

[Arnaud]

Some of you might also want to read Tim Clissold's book entitled "Mr China". I think it's a very perfect complement to this movie.

A.