Italian comedy performer-filmmaker Nanni Moretti's delicately eccentric triptych gained Moretti a Best Director award at Cannes and became an art-house hit. Although its first-person format has become somewhat the staple of "vlogs" and reality TV (not to mention being simpatico with the farcical short subjects Robert Benchley made regularly in Golden-Age Hollywood), the material still provides pleasure to adventurous home viewers in this 2K restoration/Blu-ray re-release from Film Movement.
In the first third segment, "On My Vespa," Moretti tours Rome during a languid summer when nothing of interest is playing in cinemas except angsty dramas and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Moretti instead tours storied neighborhoods (notably, one being the murder scene of filmmaker Pier Palo Pasolini), banters philosophically with bystanders, joins a band at a party, and has a serendipitous chance encounter with his celebrity obsession, starlet Jennifer Beals (strolling with her then-husband, director Alexandre Rockwell), though the latter magical moment is rendered somewhat awkward by language difficulties and Moretti's Flashdance-fan/stalker mannerisms.
In "Islands" Moretti and intellectual screenwriter-friend Gerardo (Renato Carpentieri) tours the popular Aeolian islands searching for ideal peace and contemplation to collaborate on a project. But each paradise seems violated by tourists and families with spoiled kids, and the James Joyce scholar Gerardo, through exposure to television, becomes bizarrely addicted to the broadcast sports and Italian and imported American soap operas he previously despised (name-drops like Falcon Crest will surely spark twinges of nostalgia).
In the finale, "Doctors," Moretti recounts and dramatizes a nightmarish year in which his lymphatic cancer was continually misdiagnosed as a minor skin condition. He navigated an absurd maze of blindly bureaucratic health professionals until the least likely of physicians pointed him towards the correct answer. The eclectic soundtrack includes everyone from Leonard Cohen to Angelique Kidjo, and you can't put a price in this era on someone courageous enough to suggest Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer received more critical praise than it ever merited.
Moretti is not a conventional, wisecrack-laden all-out funnyman, and extras include a contemporary making-off short showing him very seriously at work on the film. A booklet by author Millicent Marcus (is Caro Diaro a disguised version of Homer's Odyssey? Discuss...) is also included with the disc, which makes a strong addition to foreign-cinema shelves. Aud: P