the spectator

This is an Italian film, the first I watched on my one month free cable TV.

I really liked this movie because I thought it was clever and plausible. It was ultimately unsatisfying, but I think that’s true of young girls who have secret crushes on men who don’t know them. Nothing usually happens, in the end.

The girl who engages in this type of behaviour quite often hasn’t much experience of real relationships and so freezes or has no idea what to do when confronted by an actual man, much less one she’s hugely attracted to and has built up high expectations for the meeting.

This movie was a bit slow to start, and that is part of the style of the story. The pace reflects the long periods in these people’s lives where nothing much happens. Once one gets into the groove it’s quite hypnotic. It’s ironic that the man she is following is himself unsatisfied in his love life by pursuing an unattainable woman.