THE ICICLE THIEF
A film review by Barry Margolin
Copyright 1990 Barry Margolin
Over the weekend I saw the Italian film THE ICICLE THIEF. I'm surprised that I haven't seen any mention of it on the net (unless it was all during my vacation a couple of weeks ago). I'm cross-posting to rec.arts.tv because TV is part of the subject matter of the movie.
THE ICICLE THIEF is a wonderful satire and spoof. It's a satire of the butchering that is done to films in order to show them on TV, using the "film within a film" technique and turning it inside-out. The inner film is a drama about a family after WWII, in turmoil because the father can't find work. The outer film is about activities at the TV studio broadcasting the film, preceded by a review and interview with the director (the outer director, playing himself); part of the outer film also takes place in the living room of a family watching the movie (a must-see for Lego lovers -- could someone tell me what the kid built).
Since the movie is being shown on a commercial TV station, it is periodically interrupted by commercials. Things get strange, though, when one of the children in the inner movie starts humming one of the jingles and an actress from one of the commercials shows up in the movie. After this, things get *very* weird, but I won't say any more since I promised only minor spoilers.
This is definitely one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. The subtitling was done very well, I hardly ever had trouble reading the dialogue.
-- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.
barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
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