Wondrous Boccaccio

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's version of Boccaccio's The Decameron—a successor to fellow Italian auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1971 adaptation—opens in 1348 as the Black Plague holds Florence in its grip. The city buries the dead in mass graves, while survivors struggle to go on with their lives. To escape the grim scene, 10 young friends—three men and seven women—move to a house in Tuscany where they share stories to pass the time (the large cast includes rising star Riccardo Scamarcio of The Best of Youth). In the first tale, after a woman appears to die, her husband's caretakers leave her body inside an abandoned church where an admirer revives her through his love. When the man invites the husband to a gathering at his home, the wife must choose whether to stay with her savior or return to her husband. In the next story, two art students play a trick on a slow classmate—making him believe that a black river rock will render him invisible—while encouraging the townspeople to play along, which leads the man to run amok. In the third story, a daughter returns to her father's home after her husband's death, but when she falls for his protégé, the possessive duke risks losing her forever. Other tales involve lusty nuns and lovesick falconers, and while none are as unhinged as Pasolini's tales, they're all equally involving. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)