Last night marked the beginning of the 2nd Veneza Cinema Italiano, a program of seven Italian films recently shown at the Venice Film Festival and sponsored by the Italian Embassy. A few of the films, like Nuovomondo and Lettere dal sahara were already shown a month ago in the Mostra International de Cinema de São Paulo, but the rest will be making their Brazilian premieres.

I loved Nuovomondo so much in the Mostra that I will try to catch it again as part of this Italian program. Unfortunately, I wasn't as crazy about the opening night film La stella che non c'è. The basic plot follows an Italian businessman on his confusing trip throughout China while he establishes a rocky friendship with a local woman, but the story more closely resembles material from a textbook called "An Introduction to Modern China" than an actual film. The stilted dialogue serves for little besides wide generalizations and a "these people are different, but they are still people" sort of cliché. The film's greatest problem is that it relies entirely on the exotic and mysterious beauty of China to enchant us like it has its protagonist (who filters everything for us, the intended Western audience) -- forget a convincing script or believable characters! Yes, China is fascinating, and yes, it is incredibly diverse, but that doesn't make an interesting movie. Another recent film, Zhang Yimou's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, covered similar themes in a less condescending and far more entertaining way.