Reality (2012)

Luciano owns a booth in the fish market in Naples and rounds his revenues with a suspect scheme of phony kitchen robots ordering and re-selling. He has a typically assertive Italian wife, three typically sticky and noisy Italian kids and a bunch of family and neighbors which are as typical as Fellini characters can be. His lodging in the decrypt area of Naples is kind of a set of the 'Leopard' abandoned for 150 years. His contact with the big world are the reality shows, his only apparent chance of breaking the walls of his limited life is getting on the set of the 'Big Brother' show. A dream which he will eventually achieve at the cost of his own sanity.Aniello Arena is the name of the actor who plays Luciano and he does a fine job describing the descent of the character into insanity, his increasing obsession that all his life has become a reality show. Do you remember Truman Show starring Jim Carrey? The hero there thought that he was living a normal life and in reality all was a TV show. Here it's quite the opposite. Director Matteo Garrone does a fine cinematography job, and his sets look at many moments like descending from Fellini or Visconti. The ending may ask some questions about reality, but actually we have descended into the i-reality of such shows. I liked it.

Reality is a wonderfully drawn film that showcases the obsessive behavior of a guy destined (in his own mind) to take the prize on Italy's 'Big Brother.' Not a new premise by any stretch, and always difficult to watch. He basically throws his life, the life of his family, and his own sanity out the window for a stupid reality TV show, before needing the proper motivation to fight his way back.That being said it is a story of flawed characters. Of which we are all. So I tried very hard to get over my general distaste of the main character's actions and maneuvers to enjoy the story that was being told. Direction and cinematography are top notch. Simply exquisite. The non stop sweeping camera made my knees weak at times...and I simply loved the title treatment at the end of the film. Probably even gained it another star simply because it made me smile on my way out the door.But when all is said and done we find our characters, and in many ways ourselves, left exactly as we were to begin with, nothing learned, nothing lost, and definitely nothing ultimately gained.

Reality is a fitting title about a man who totally lost it (his own sense of reality).Part satire, part a comic-tragic portrait of our world with its vanities our hero is just an everyday guy who is a fishmonger, and like many others has a souse, children with all that goes with it.His world is shaken when following a brief performance in a wedding reception he becomes acquainted with a celebrity and the desire is born in him that he can be part of this world, the world of stardom, wealth and recognition.So by making use of this brief acquaintance he enters a competition to join big brother and does so in the certainty it will be his passport to fame and fortune. The contact with fame though ludicrously brief it is enough to cause him a great deal of harm.The harm came in the form of obsessive behaviour, paranoia and hallucination causing a loss of his own self awareness and disregard for all those around him.A charmer of a movie about vanity, obsession and a surrounding culture that feeds us these kind of fake feelings and desires.

One of the things I have read more frequently about this movie is that, since it talks about the TV program "Big Brother", which in Italy has already reached the 12th season, it's supposed to be a decade late. Well: it's not, as the "Reality" mentioned in the title is obviously not the one of the TV-genre, but the actual one of nowadays Italy.As Woody Allen wrote once, "life doesn't imitates art: imitates bad television". Following this line, the first scene is by far the more "fantastic" of the whole movie: we see an incredibly rich marriage ceremony, and we are not on TV or in any other fiction, but we are supposed to be in the real world - even if the settings and the outfits looks like a David LaChappelle picture. But later, when the guests go back to their homes, we see how theirs everyday "Reality" is made of poor dirty houses, impossibly crowded interiors, daily struggles and tricks to arrange a living. All places depicted completely lack any sign of awareness or responsible living in the world: newspapers don't exist, books are never read or shown, Internet is never searched – and receipts during commercial transactions are never issued. In this wasteland of culture and decency, feelings still grows. We can see that the main character still genuinely loves and cares for his wife and kids, and he could be called, in his own way, a good family man. But disaster suddenly happens when his set of values proves to be not enough to properly relate with the ghosts of fame and success.This "Bigbrother" thing, when it was introduced in Italy had some cultural appeal, and for some months represented something worthy to talk about. But it has quickly evolved in a tire and sad repetition of the same situations, that seems to aim at a lower target every further year: and after more than 10 years of lowering, now it doesn't have audiences anymore, but victims. This movie will show you how one of those victims undergoes his own sacrifice. So, be prepared: it can't be anything else than a very sad story – highlighted anyhow by some great actor performances.