You Laugh

In Italian cinema and Italian culture, the past and present are always closely intertwined, the one informing our understanding of the other--a symbiotic relationship evident in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's finest films, 1977's Padre Padrone and 1982's Night of the Shooting Stars. In their relatively slight 1998 effort, You Laugh, the brothers serve up an adaptation of two stories by Luigi Pirandello that probe history on both the personal and national scales. In the first, a former opera singer (Antonio Albanese) lives a miserable life as an accountant, but laughs out loud in his dreams. In the second, a mobster kidnaps the son of a potential informant, taking him to a region where a hundred years earlier an old intellectual was kidnapped by a group of peasant revolutionaries. While both segments display the Taviani brothers' characteristic lyrical grace, the combination never adds up to much--Albanese's heartbreaking and graceful performance carries the first, but the second tale feels more like an afterthought. Optional. (D. Fienberg)