Tartarughe sul dorso (2004)

movie

(93)

Country: Italy
Genres: Drama
Release: 2005-05-06
Director: Stefano Pasetto
Writers: Marina Fabbri , Carmelo Marabello , Stefano Pasetto
Language: Italian
Stars: Lorenzo Acquaviva , Vittorio Amandola , Gabriella Barbuti , Barbora Bobulova , Silvia Boscutti , Joel Calligaris , Daniela Calò , Caterina Casini , Maria Serena Ciano , Ottaviano Dell’Acqua
Runtime: 87 min
Awards: 1 win & 5 nominations
AKA: Turtles on Their Backs (Australia) , Tartarughe sul dorso (Italy) , Tartarughe sul dorso , Sköldpaddor på rygg (Sweden)
Plot: Fabrizio Rongione plays a young man who, after time in prison for causing gbh in a fight (he has an explosive temper which he tries to control), restlessly moves from job to job, mostly in Trieste, Italy. Jobs include working as a packer in a supermarket, a baker, and a crane operator. His abiding passions are photography, and catching glimpses of a girl he first gave a turtle to (as payment for touching her back) as a schoolboy. The girl, meanwhile, has become a woman (Barbora Bobulova) who, at the start of the film has cut short a medical degree to be with her ailing aunt also in Trieste - the rest of her family having died. She has nightime work as a cleaner, and catches the same 5am tram home each morning that the "baker" takes to work. The director (Stefano Pasetto) weaves a delicate tango of glimpses, and near misses as the two lives brush, separate, brush again and finally coalesce some years later through an accident on the crane. (The director uses the game of "Scrabble" to link pieces of the story together.) Though their lives have taken different paths (she resumed her studies after her aunt died, became a doctor, then married one, while he went abroad for awhile) they have a sense of completing each other. But they also share an abiding air of sadness and tragedy waiting to happen.
IMDB:tt0435441