chi l'ha visto -- ffm

sunday september 6, evening

Chi l'ha visto .. a german film in german and italian .. and yet another film i happened on at this festival in which a son is looking for an unknown or absent father ..

since certain aspects of films seem to be there for the sole purpose of foreshadowing, i wondered at the outset about the implications of Gianni being shown performing at a gay club where he hangs out in a squalid room .. smoking, drinking, doing lines of cocaine and other men .. some around him are in drag, possibly transexuals ..

he decides to leave germany to try to find his italian father whom he hasn't seen since he was a child .. he knows the name, and that he'd been a handball champion .. so the film becomes a road trip .. and reveals more of gianni's obsessiveness in this search ..

he hooks up with paul, another german .. but paul eventually cuts out because gianni is more interested in his quest than in having a good time ..

eventually, in telling people along the way that he's looking for his father, some one tells him about an italian tv show, chi l'ha vista, where they help in searches of this type .. Gianni contacts the show and provides details .. they agree to take him on, but no information turns up ..

there is a scene where gianni is watching the show in his hotel room .. a blond woman is walking in front of an audience with her microphone, telling a story in the first person .. with a male voice .. the story has the deatils of gianni's, but from the point of view of the father .. gianni does not respond to this .. lost in his own thoughts?

later, gianni performs in front of the hotel room mirror as mc, son, and found father as they might appear on the tv show when it's his turn .. we, the film audience, get to see some fine acting .. and also, something childlike in this character who is supposed to be in his early thirties ..

i was convinced there was some sort of dramatic irony at work here .. that the film audience was privy to the fact that a father couldn't be found because the father had become a woman .. my seatmate at the movie believed that the male voice over was gianni's imagination ..

there is a final scene in a cemetery which provides what i feel is a brilliant conclusion to gianni's quest .. this is not an overly long film, and if it happens to play somewhere near you, it's an interesting well-acted character sketch ..

cinemoo at the ffm in montreal