Il Postino (Italian)

Movie: Il Postino

Year: 1994

Director: Michael Radford

Language: Italian

Synopsis:In a small village in coastal Italy Mario, the son of a fisherman, takes the job of a postman. His only work is to deliver letters to Pablo Neruda the famous Chilean poet who is staying on that island on exile. Neruda has been exiled to Italy due to his communist views. Slowly the movie explores the development of a friendship between Neruda and Mario. Mario develops a love for poetry and helped by Neruda starts using his new found communication skills to woo the lady of his dreams, Beatrice. Almost at the same time both Mario and Beatrice get married and Pablo leaves Italy for his country. Years later Pablo revisits the village to find out that Beatrice in the same café along with her son. She hands him a sound recording that Mario had made for Pablo of various sounds of his life…and it leads to the sound of his being killed while trying to get on stage to read a poem of Pablo.

My own take: The best description of this movie is poetry brought to life. The movie is so beautiful that it builds its story around the scenery and characters in one fluid motion. The character of Mario is so lovable that it touches your heart in many ways. You empathize with him when he struggles to get his love or when he seeks advice from the elderly poet. The director manages to bring smiles when Mario tries to get the love of his life. And then the emotions change when the pain of separation makes Mario do things to get back the friendship he had with Pablo. The last scenes when Pablo gets the tape which capture the sounds that Mario wanted the poet to hear are heart wrenching. Trivia about the movie- Massimo Troisi the postman in the movie actually died of a heart attack about 12 hours after the last shot of the movie. He was postponing his surgery for the movie. Must watch if you dont want to miss out a serious classic.