Fairy tales from sources other than the Disney Factory are rare enough these days, but can there be any rarer bird than a fairy tale from Argentina?
Yet that's exactly what creeps into the Charles today in rotation with New Line's tragically disrespected "Hoop Dreams." The movie is called "I Don't Want To Talk About It," and it's one of those movies that feels sweetly magical.
The scene is an unknown sea-coast town in Argentina in the '20s and '30s. Everyone in the place realizes exactly what the wealthy widow Leonor does not: that her beloved daughter Charlotte will not get any bigger. Leonor (Luisina Brando) insists totally that all is well even if Charlotte (little person Alejandra Podesta) resolutely refuses to break the 3-foot level.
Later, a handsome, mysterious gentleman comes to town, the glamorous Ludovico D'Andrea (Marcello Mastroianni), who quickly comes to dominate the town's social life with his charismatic ways. For a number of years, he seems the perfect match for Leonor, and there comes a time when he confesses that he wishes to get married.
Her eyes light up. At last a man worthy of her! They begin to make plans for the wedding.
Er, oops.
It's only then that she realizes he wants to marry little Charlotte.
"I Don't Want To Talk About It" has the easygoing, fable-like feeling of that South American literary movement called "magic realism," except that nothing in it happens that is magical. Indeed, though Bemberg continually stresses the utter weirdness of everyday life, everything that happens could happen in everyday life.
A grown man of 60 could fall in love with a little person of 15. They could get married. The mayor could die at the wedding and, rather than break up the ceremony and fiesta, the mother of the bride could deposit him in a tub of ice. The circus could come to town.
And, most important, the movie could be utterly captivating in a gentle way.
MOVIE REVIEW
"I Don't Want To Talk About It"
Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Luisina Brando
Directed by Maria Luisa Bemberg
Released by Sony Pictures International (in Spanish with English subtitles)
Unrated
** 1/2