听 An audacious, unexpected, and impressive change of direction after the more scatological, easy-going charm of "Dear Diary" and "Aprile", Italian maestro Nanni Moretti's "The Son's Room" is a moving and sometimes painful look at love and loss, precipitated by the director's own contemplation of mortality following his diagnosis with (a thankfully non-malignant) cancer.
As usual, Moretti also appears before the camera, playing contented, psychoanalyst Giovanni, much loved by his wife Paola (Morante) and two teenage children, Irene (Trinca) and Andrea (Sanfelice).
Working from the small practice that adjoins his apartment, Giovanni spends his days listening to the various neuroses of his troubled patients, whilst secretly savouring his own tranquil existence.
That tranquillity is forever shattered, however, when a work commitment forces him to sacrifice a father/son activity. Andrea makes fresh plans to go diving with friends and sadly never returns...
Minus Moretti's characteristic digressions, "The Son's Room" - a popular winner at Cannes in 2001 - is a structurally and thematically focused affair, representing the director's most assured work to-date.
In less competent hands, the narrative could have played out as a mawkish, overtly sentimental melodrama but, anchored by delicate, unfussy photography and understated, shaded performances by a pitch-perfect cast, it all adds up to something more compelling: an incisive, cathartic drama about the fragile fabric of human life.
Profoundly melancholic but never self-pitying in tone, Moretti and co-writers Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef imbue the proceedings with humility and humanity. They have delivered a major work that offers further evidence of the current riches to be found in European cinema.
