The Consequences of Love (2004)

Highly Recommended

Italy
Feature Film
Original Title: Le conseguenze dell'amore
Writer/Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Cinematographer: Luca Bigazzi
Composer: Pasquale Catalano
Cast: Toni Servillo, Olivia Magnani, Adriano Giannini, Antonio Ballerio, Enzo Vitagliano, Vittorio Di Prima, Nino D'Agata, Gaetano Bruno

With its playful mise en scène, lush palette of colours, gorgeous score, and cracking, subtle performances, Sorrentino’s patient, insightful crime film, chronicling the day-to-day life of a dour, disillusioned, middle-aged banker, virtually imprisoned by the Cosa Nostra in a Swiss hotel for eight years after losing over 200 billion dollars of Mafia money on the stock market, is a surprising, atypical gem that adds a level of poetry and humanity to a genre generally lacking such qualities. Iain.Stott