Nanni Moretti’s deeply personal THE SON’S ROOM, part of IFC Center retrospective, looks at family tragedy
LA VITA E CINEMA: THE FILMS OF NANNI MORETTI: THE SON’S ROOM (LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO) (Nanni Moretti, 2001)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Sunday, April 1, and Monday, April 2
Series continues through April 5
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
Winner of the Palme D’Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, The Son’s Room is a moving look at life, love, and loss. Italian writer-director-actor Nanni Moretti stars as Giovanni, a psychiatrist who can’t control the dissolution of his family following a terrible tragedy. Moretti (Caro Diario, Ecce Bombo) has made a heart-wrenching work that will always be compared with Todd Field’s powerful In the Bedroom, which came out the same year. Both films examine family tragedy with honesty and believability, but whereas the family in In the Bedroom considers revenge, the father in The Son’s Room, achingly played by Moretti, can’t get over wrongly blaming himself, while his wife (Laura Morante, who won the Best Actress award at Cannes for the role) seeks solace in her son’s girlfriend (Sofia Vigliar), whom she had not known about. Moretti is a deeply personal filmmaker; at times you will feel like you are watching a documentary, and it will break your heart. The Son’s Room is screening Saturday and Sunday as part of the IFC Center series “La Vita e Cinema: The Films of Nanni Moretti,” being held in conjunction with the U.S. theatrical release of Moretti’s latest, We Have a Pope, which opens at the IFC Center on April 6. Moretti will discuss the film at the 7:30 screening on March 31. Other films in the retrospective include I Am Self-Sufficient, Bianca, Sweet Dreams, and The Mass Is Ended.