Powerful

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

As terms indicate, and none but few even among the intelligentzia had foreseen, the virtual reality sold by mass communication has had an awesome capability to interpenetrate with «reality», going beyond any prediction. To the extent that by antonomasia «reality» became the most common synonym for «reality show». Ambigous by choice, the title of this film can then mean one or another thing: does it refer to a kind of TV production, reality shows, or to «reality»? Perhaps following the story will uncover the answer to this, however, realities, initially said to be to reflect reality, have then significantly shaped the latter (just as social networks are shaping society injecting virtuality into it, rather than being a mere reproduction of society on a virtual dimension). Perhaps by now reality and realities are one new mixed entity, and not discernible anymore.It is for a good part of it a decent film, with patently low-budget actors giving their all, non-cheap irony, raising with due discretion a contemporary crucial sociological problem, perhaps the main one: the seemingly limitless influence of mass media on the very lives of masses. The ending is well done, and mention-worthy for beauty are end credits.

Luciano owns a booth in the fish market in Naples and rounds his revenues with a suspect scheme of phony kitchen robots ordering and re-selling. He has a typically assertive Italian wife, three typically sticky and noisy Italian kids and a bunch of family and neighbors which are as typical as Fellini characters can be. His lodging in the decrypt area of Naples is kind of a set of the 'Leopard' abandoned for 150 years. His contact with the big world are the reality shows, his only apparent chance of breaking the walls of his limited life is getting on the set of the 'Big Brother' show. A dream which he will eventually achieve at the cost of his own sanity.Aniello Arena is the name of the actor who plays Luciano and he does a fine job describing the descent of the character into insanity, his increasing obsession that all his life has become a reality show. Do you remember Truman Show starring Jim Carrey? The hero there thought that he was living a normal life and in reality all was a TV show. Here it's quite the opposite. Director Matteo Garrone does a fine cinematography job, and his sets look at many moments like descending from Fellini or Visconti. The ending may ask some questions about reality, but actually we have descended into the i-reality of such shows. I liked it.

I saw this film as part of the Rotterdam film festival 2013 (IFFR), about someone pressured by his family to candidate himself for a Big Brother house. It all gets out of hand when he is not accepted initially but yet thinks to be on a sort of waiting list while being observed by the Big Brother team. He assumes being selected for a very special role in that TV show, and will be given a part later on when he proves to fit their criteria.During the final Q&A the director said that the film is about dreaming to escape from reality and to loose one's identity. He describers the main character (Luciano) to be a victim of the system. Luciano desire to get into the Big Brother house comes from initial pressure by his family, though later on he himself gets a bit mad about it. He continues with rigor, in spite of protests from the same family that pressured him in the first place. The importance of the family cannot be stressed enough and has a crucial role in the story, something typical for Italy as stated by the director.The story forming the basis for this scenario really happened to a brother of the director's wife. (By the way: He is fully recovered now. He has even re-opened his fish shop at the same spot in Naples.) And giving away his furniture to make a good impression on imaginary inspectors, was also real, even to the extent that his wife did not dare leaving the house in fear of finding it empty on return. Even the cricket that Luciano suspected to be full of camera's, appeared in reality too. The ending scenes seem a bit far fetched (I won't reveal details, for spoilers sake), but can be deemed all right if it really comes from the true story that was the basis of this film.The director also said that the actors were taken from theater or cabaret (except one, a family member). Faces were an important criterion in the selection process. The roles they play and their appearances reflect a "normal" family from the region. That explains the overload of wrinkled people, and especially women looking like the stereotypical "mama" that we see in food commercials. Luckily, the main characters (Luciano and his wife) are not so bad looking, in contrast to their entourage.All in all, the film is a nice product with many hilarious moments. It is a bit too long, in my opinion, particularly when you get easily annoyed by heavily gesturing Italians, talking with a waterfall of words (it looks that way for us, understanding no Italian) and overly dramatic movements. We won't consider this movie memorable, but it serves its purpose as family entertainment very well. Anyway, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves nevertheless. The venue (over 500 seats) was fully booked on a Sunday morning.

One of the things I have read more frequently about this movie is that, since it talks about the TV program "Big Brother", which in Italy has already reached the 12th season, it's supposed to be a decade late. Well: it's not, as the "Reality" mentioned in the title is obviously not the one of the TV-genre, but the actual one of nowadays Italy.As Woody Allen wrote once, "life doesn't imitates art: imitates bad television". Following this line, the first scene is by far the more "fantastic" of the whole movie: we see an incredibly rich marriage ceremony, and we are not on TV or in any other fiction, but we are supposed to be in the real world - even if the settings and the outfits looks like a David LaChappelle picture. But later, when the guests go back to their homes, we see how theirs everyday "Reality" is made of poor dirty houses, impossibly crowded interiors, daily struggles and tricks to arrange a living. All places depicted completely lack any sign of awareness or responsible living in the world: newspapers don't exist, books are never read or shown, Internet is never searched – and receipts during commercial transactions are never issued. In this wasteland of culture and decency, feelings still grows. We can see that the main character still genuinely loves and cares for his wife and kids, and he could be called, in his own way, a good family man. But disaster suddenly happens when his set of values proves to be not enough to properly relate with the ghosts of fame and success.This "Bigbrother" thing, when it was introduced in Italy had some cultural appeal, and for some months represented something worthy to talk about. But it has quickly evolved in a tire and sad repetition of the same situations, that seems to aim at a lower target every further year: and after more than 10 years of lowering, now it doesn't have audiences anymore, but victims. This movie will show you how one of those victims undergoes his own sacrifice. So, be prepared: it can't be anything else than a very sad story – highlighted anyhow by some great actor performances.