Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

bigverybadtom The cover of the video disc made me think that this was going to be a lush, sexy tale of romance. Instead, it was a poorly-filmed, poorly-written, poorly-acted soap opera about a bunch of people in a Danish town who meet as a result of a little-attended Italian language class. This premise might have still worked if it were done right, but it looks like a home movie, and it seems the people who praise it are the ones who think any film that doesn't come from Hollywood is a great classic.It's not a classic, not even in a "so-bad-it's-good" sense. The plot is about a recently-widowed pastor hired for the town church to fill in for the regular one who has been suspended, and other major characters include a hairdresser with a dying mother, a bakery employee who keeps dropping things and who has an obnoxious dying father, an obnoxious and self-absorbed young restaurant manager, an Italian waitress who wants a husband, and other similarly clichéd characters who are neither developed nor likable. The story jumps from one scene to another, featuring a few mild laughs but no actual good parts. After two-thirds of the way I just gave up, deciding there would be no payoff.You cannot always judge a DVD by its cover, or by the fact that it is called a "classic". Beware of that term; you might be disappointed.

secondtake Italian for Beginners (2000)A very sweet, romantic, warm movie about a bunch of slightly lonely, slightly misfit Danes who meet through an Italian class. There is a dysfunctional church (probably not uncommon in Denmark), a quaint bakery, a hairdresser's, and so on, adding to a kind of small town reality where everything has conviction.As much as this is all good--and it is good, if not great--it's also decided low budget in a kind of clunky way. The acting is fine--people are themselves, I suppose, or like fairly normal people--and the story line is cute and clever. But the filming and direction borders on a really good home movie. It's a 97 minute affair of course, and doesn't feel thrown together or amateurish, merely so simple and plain, visually, it becomes conspicuous.But if you can just enjoy the interpersonal lives, and some budding love affairs (and who can't), and a final section in Venice, you might find it a sweet joy.

Jess Thomsen Director Lone Scherfig has proved that she's able to direct a movie based on the Dogme '95 concept first originated by Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in 1995. It's a simple story told through the eyes of 6 lonely persons in a small town on the rural coast of Jutland. What binds them together is the common interest for the Italian language they all participate during an evening course.One might think that it's a common love story, but the character building clearly proves that it's not uncommon for all age groups to have all kinds of personally burdens such as the reverend Wredmann who has lost his belief in God as he has lost his wife to God. Another such character would be Olympia who has almost given up all hope of ever being able to function as human being because of fetus damages.The primary reason for watching a picture like this one the developing of characters and how they bond together even though personalities of Karen and Hal-Finn are quite disturbing with Hal-Finn being a really imbecile. This is the only place where "Italiensk for begyndere" starts to lack some ingenuity but in the end it's only minor complain. In the end if you're into foreign pictures and especially endearing dramas then go and see "Italiensk for begyndere" if you got some time to spare.7/10

Peter Hayes Life in a dull Danish provincial town is only partly enlivened by an Italian night class.This is one of these newfangled movies ("Dogma" for those in the know) where the whole thing is captured on video camera, lighting is natural-and-available and all music has to come from a visible source on screen.Here we have camera work so wobbly that it looks like the cameraman has been taken by surprise by some of the action - either that for the director (Lone Sherfig) doesn't know the Danish phrases for "cut" or "let's go again - the cameraman wasn't ready!"We are in a Mike Leigh world of small people with flaws trying to make a life in difficult circumstances. There seems a lot of deaths, but in this grey world you can almost call them mercy killings!Finn is the marginal lead character (just ahead of the young new pastor) as he is both the coffee shop manager - for a while at least - and the stand-in Italian teacher after the original teacher has a heart attack in class. Given that he is fluent in Italian already you wonder why he needs to attend in the first place, but maybe it is the social scene that interest him?While you may knock the grade Z production values it tells a lot of truths. The main one is that life is nothing but a string of embarrassing moments played off against small moments of pleasure or diversion.