Bad Tales

An Italian film set in a housing estate outside Rome. There are several families. They live on the same street, their gardens adjoin, and their children go to the same school. On the surface everything is normal. There are barbecues, a pool is put up, school reports are boasted about, and the neighbours envy each other. Bruno is proud of his daughter's marks. He is unemployed and tells nobody; he carries his children's success as his own standing. The children are silent. They do not speak, they look at each other, and they are planning something the adults cannot see. There is a new teacher at the school. He takes an interest in the children and teaches them something; the narrative opens this slowly. From there the film becomes a story of preparation. A notebook, a purchase, a chemical and a date. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but parenting: the film is about what the adults do not do rather than what the children do. There is a voice over. The narrator says he found a diary and admits inventing part of the story; this deliberately unsettles the narrative's reliability. The tone is cold. Summer heat, white walls, open sky and a constant quiet; the film never raises its voice. The adults are not caricatures. The narrative does not draw them as monsters; it shows people who are stuck, ashamed, and do not know their own children. The ending is plainly shattering and the film gives it with no preparation. The directors are twin brothers and wrote it together; the production won the screenplay award in Berlin. Elio Germano, Tommaso Di Cola, Giulietta Rebeggiani and Barbara Chichiarelli are in the cast. Damiano and Fabio D'Innocenzo directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes cold, uncomfortable European drama. Who it is not for: nearly everyone; the subject is children being harmed and the film offers no consolation at the end.