Human Flower Project

Monday, March 26, 2007

Bread and Tulips

Suicide? Adultery? The Italians manage to keep it all light, by ducking into a Venetian flower shop.

Bruno Ganz bereft in Venice

in Pane e Tulipani

Its blooms still look fresh, even though Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips) came out in 2000.

Directed by Silvio Soldini, this film was a huge hit and prize-winner in Italy, but in the U.S. we missed it. About that time, everyone here was engrossed with another film of flowers and a sick marriage: American Beauty.

What a difference between them! In the Italian movie Bruno Ganz gives a wonderfully soulful performance as Fernando Girasole (get it?), a desperate and sad restaurant owner whom love brings back to life. We won’t ruin the plot for you; let’s just say that the steed our hero rides off on/in is a florist’s delivery van.

As for American Beauty, we’ve never understood why audiences found Lester Burnham, Kevin Spacey’s self-pitying creep, at all sympathetic. We were rooting the whole time for his bitchy real-estate-saleslady wife, Annette Bening, only to discover when the lights came up she was the villain. Oops!

Fermo, florist and anarchist

played by Felice Andreasi

in Pane e Tulipani

Bread and Tulips also accords the pleasure of several scenes in a Venetian flower shop. Our leading lady, Licia Maglietta (Rosalba), takes a job there, working for irascible Fermo, played with fine crust by Felice Andreasi. Just our sort of florist, Fermo is scandalized by someone who chooses iris for an anniversary. “What! Are you a monarchist!” he shrieks. Like all true florists, Fermo has firm views about which flowers suit each occasion. (Narcissus for a new mother….)

Working for this generous anarchist, Rosalba also returns to her dingy apartment every night with something beautiful—birds of paradise, roses, chrysanthemums. Fussy flower marketers would do well to note the transformative effect of tulips under a bare light bulb.

One stateside critic called of Bread and Tulips, “sweet, dopey, predictable, and still charming” …all of that. And, unless you live in Italy, likely not checked out at the video store.