Posted by Gus | 0 Comments

Il Postino – Movie

Greetings  to all of you!

A couple of days ago I finally had the opportunity to watch Il Postino, it had been on my Netflix queue for a while and having recently enabled one movie in my profile, it arrived. All this time I was thinking this movie was more about romance and love… I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was also about the discovery of oneself, our potential and a greater appreciation to that which surrounds us.

I came to appreciate the movie even more as I got to watch the movie again while lisening to the audio commentary with Director Michael Radford, and found out that Massimo Troisi who played Mario Ruoppolo died sometime after the shooting of the movie ended.

What an amazing story, not just the movie itself but the journey that Massimo Troisi choose to have this picture made.  Massimo Troisi came across the Italian version of this story and identified with the postman (Mario Ruoppolo), purchased the rights from writer Antonio Skarmeta, and kept calling Director Michael Radford every couple of months to direct this movie, eventually Director Michael Radford agreed.

During the shooting of the movie, Massimo was notified he needed a heart operation and he postponed it so they could continue to work on the film, unfortunately he died right after the movie was completed. What a brave individual, to accomplish his dream until the very last minute.

There are many sites that go in detail about describing the movie, I suggest that if you are curious you just rent it or purchase it and enjoy it without a preconceived idea.

Here is what in my humble opinion would be the equivalent of trying to explain the movie to you, in the movie the character Mario asks Pablo Neruda if he can explain why “the smell of barber shops makes me sob?” The character Pablo Neruda responds (This is mainly the English subtitle translation and a few words of mine – I am able to understand some Italian words as they are similar sounding to Spanish words).

“You see Mario i cannot tell you in words different from those that I have used, when you explain poetry it becomes banal… better than any explanation is the direct experience of emotions that poetry can reveal to a mind predisposed to understand it.”

Il Postino was loosely based on a book called “Ardiente Paciencia” written by Chilean Antonio Skarmeta.

And it was at that age … Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

-Pablo Neruda

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