Tag: 19th centhury

[EXPRESSO] Duse (2025) | D’Annunzio in the Sky with Diamonds

A period piece biopic (one that has been quite a while in the making but finally started production in late 2024, on her 100th anniversary) about Eleonora Duse, widely recognized as the greatest actress of her time, one of the all time greatests, because of her unorthodox approach to theathre and her ability to shock and wow audiences worlwide even if she kept reciting in Italian, unique as she both carried on old traditions yet was an anti-diva of sorts in the late 19th Centhury, and she’s basically recognized as one of the more important figures of the period, alongside Nietzche and Ibsen.

This movie depicts her last years, as after having a downright legendary career, she feels the call to return to the stage during the turbolent period after the end of WWI and the upcoming rise of fascism, as she wants to reaffirm herself (and her art) in a nation hurling towards the political deep end, which mirrors her own ailing health…

I’m not sure exactly why i’m reviewing it here, i was gonna see it anyways since i did happen to study her life and career, but i just don’t see this reaching out anywhere else, it’s just a kind of movie that will basically be for very few people, even less when it leaves Italian theathers, where is bombing hard regardless because Eleonora Duse is not a popular name here either.

It’s a shame because it’s a very good historical drama about “turn of the centhury” theather, the importance of art in response to the traumas of war, the scenography is good, the performances are great and so are the perfectly flawed characters.

So if you can still catch it in theathers or if it becomes available on streaming, i strongly recommend watching and-or buying/supporting it.

[EXPRESSO] El Paramo (2022) | Thy Patience Consumed

Some really fresh (as in “new”) Netflix content for me and you, El Paramo is set in 19th centhury Spain, where a family living in a remote house is haunted by an entity that feeds on their terror, and it falls upon the young boy Diego to save his mother from the entity… and herself.

…. or so this is premise as Netflix puts in the description. A correct synopsis that doesn’t spoil the experience, i’m not harping on that, i just prefer to describe this movie as “mother simulator”, since the mother not only has to suffer her husband basically disappearing and never coming back most likely due to the wars happening outside their isolated refuge, having to defend herself from a supernatural beast that she thought was just a legend, but also having to put up with her son, one of the most annoying and dumbass child character i’ve seen in a recent horror film.

Stupid, grating and spineless too, just in case the kid wasn’t annoying enough to deal with, even though it eventually leads to his character arc going where you would expect…but until the last act he doesn’t come off as the more sane and kind character he actually is, but as cowardly dumbass that almost makes this movie an accidental “anti-Babadook”, as for most of it i was rooting for the mother to get rid of both “annoyances”, not only the monster, and have some peace.

That said, let me stress that the movie it’s not bad, the setting it’s pretty good, the cinematography it’s also quite nice, the creature’s lore and design are spooky enough and played fairly decently for tension instead of jumpscares, and there are some atmospheric moments, but there’s just not much to it and overall it’s mostly average.