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Larry Karaszewski5.0

Everything you could possibly want from a movie about LA. I spent more time looking for street signs and restaurants than reading the subtitles. A total joy. “Rocco and his Brothers” shows up on a movie marquee!

sakana13.0

With a soundtrack featuring songs played by Chet Baker, Smog, the first European film with the majority of its footage shot in LA, serves first and foremost as a document of an outsider's view of the city in 1962. Punctuated by periodical on-screen labels of the community being driven through, the film encompasses long car rides, visits to architectural icons, and empty conversations, often between Italian expats and Vittorio Ciocchetti (Enrico Maria Salerno), a Roman lawyer on an extended layover on his way to Mexico.The car rides are mind numbing, weaving their ways through a seemingly endless city with too much neon, too many cars, and too many billboards. From a bowling alley, to the Stahl House; from an oil field, to a large estate, Vittorio ping-pongs through Los Angeles in service of his own ambition and that of his acquaintances. Though the film was originally condemned as anti-American upon its release, the reality is that its focus is on the Italians who live there, people consumed — just like their host nation — with a desire for wealth, or fame or, for Annie Girardot's Gabriella, something as modest as the money and confidence to live an independent life as a woman.Though initially Vittorio, who has been told to leave his passport at the airport, and thus, as he points out, is without an identity, seems unsettled by the new, sprawling city in which he's been set adrift, he finds his feel quickly as he realizes that none of his new acquaintances have power or status that he lacks, and that most of them are as nakedly ambitious as he. Once he realizes how familiar his temporary environment actual is, Vittorio immediately begins playing angles, arranging to meet rich people and important ones, and trying to make connections for his future political career (he's marrying the daughter of a Roman politician, in order to create that career), and establish name recognition for future American visits.As part of this shift in attitude, he stops seeing Gabriella, a financially independent Italian expat who not only becomes his chauffeur, but also provides him a place to stay for the night, as a companion and possible friend, and begins to see her only as a means through which he can meet the right people, and go to the right parties.* In a long-term, casual relationship with ambitious, unfocused fellow expat Mario (Renato Salvatori), Gabriella is clearly interested in Vittorio, giving him far more time and attention than he deserves purely out of curiosity, indulging him to a point despite his dismissive, sometimes misogynistic attitude. Eventually, however, she has enough of following him around, serving as driver and translator, and leaves, returning to Mario and her predictable, if unromantic, reality.Whereas Vittorio is all polished smarm and easy banter, Mario is a bundle of failed schemes and twitchy energy. His hands in dozens of pots, Mario is determined to get rich through one scheme or another, even if he has to steal from Vittorio to pay for the land upon which he's convinced himself he'll find oil. Mario is compelling because he's desperate and transparently lost, arguing with himself about whether or not to take Vittorio's money and moving through the world as a raw nerve, constantly on the verge of collapse, arrest, or unimaginable wealth. Neither Vittorio nor Mario will ever be satisfied, but Vittorio's ambition and connections will take him far: he will be unsatisfied with his wealth, his beautiful wife, and his high government position, but he'll have power and he'll have money to assuage the pain. Mario, if only he would slow down and look around, could have a life with Gabriella, if he wanted it, but for him (or, more accurately, for the man he would like to be — a man like Vittorio), accepting that life would be binding himself to an anchor he cannot afford. And so he'll keep wandering and keep clawing for opportunities that never come.And Gabriella will keep paying off her starkly beautiful new home, better off without him, but unable to fully shake the lessons of her grandmother and great-grandmother about marriage and the roles of women, and never quite able to believe that she's made a success of her life.(Also: there might come a day when the unexpected sight of Max Showalter's silly face and his inevitable, goobery enthusiasm doesn't thrill me but, friends, this is absolutely not that day. I literally applauded when he appeared.)*The LB summary says that Vittorio and Gabriella have an affair, but they definitely don't?

John2.5

Will someone just drive this asshole to the goddamn airport already?