La voce della luna
| The Voice of the Moon | |
|---|---|
Italian theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by | Federico Fellini |
| Produced by | Mario and Vittorio Cecchi Gori |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Based on |
Il poema dei lunatici by Ermano Cavazzoni |
| Starring |
|
| Music by | Nicola Piovani |
| Cinematography | Tonino Delli Colli |
| Edited by | Nino Baragli |
|
Release date
|
31 January 1990 |
|
Running time
|
120 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
The Voice of the Moon (Italian: La voce della luna) is a 1990 Italian dramatic comedy film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Roberto Benigni, Paolo Villaggio, and Nadia Ottaviani. Returning to themes he first explored in La strada (1954), Fellini crafts a parable on the whisperings of the soul that only madmen and vagabonds are capable of hearing. Based on the novel Il poema dei lunatici by Ermano Cavazzoni, the film is about a fake inspector of wells and a former prefect who wander through the Emilia-Romagna countryside of Fellini's childhood and discover a dystopia of television commercials, fascism, beauty pageants, rock music, Catholicism, and pagan ritual.
The film received David di Donatello Awards for Best Actor, Best Editing, and Best Production Design, and nominations for Best Director, Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Music, and Best Producer.The Voice of the Moon was Fellini's last film before his death in 1993.
With a nod to the lunar-obsessed lyrics of Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, the acerbic tale focuses on the capture of the moon by the Micheluzzi Brothers while Ivo, newly released from a mental hospital, tries to seduce Aldina Ferruzzi with whom he's infatuated. Although she wants nothing to do with him, Ivo equates her blond beauty with the moon, the origin of his madness and frustration. During the attempts to woo her, he meets various madcap characters including an oboist who sleeps in the local cemetery, a man whose hobby is meditating on rooftops, and Gonnella, the ex-prefect fired for his rising paranoia. Gonnella makes Ivo his lieutenant and together they investigate the "wild conspiracies" going on around them.
The oddball pair attends a farcical beauty pageant where Aldina is crowned "Miss Flour of 1989" and ends up lost in the farmlands among graceful African women chanting in the moonlight. Inside an abandoned warehouse, they discover an Inferno-like disco of fashion victims dancing and bopping deliriously to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel." Ivo realises that Aldina's shoe, obtained surreptitiously, fits every Cinderella who tries it on. To the dancers' stupefaction, Gonnella orchestrates a waltz but is thrown out after smashing the disc jockey's cache of records.
...
Wikipedia