Lewis, a young amateur theater director, is offered a job with a governmental program for the rehabilitation of mentally ill patients in a Sydney institution. His project is overrun by one of the patients who wants to stage the opera Cosi Fan Tutte by Mozart despite the fact that none of the patients are able to sing and none of them speak Italian. A comedy of errors ensues, but one which unifies the patients and their director in unexpected ways.
19 Feb Cosi (1996)
Madmen
‘The Ninth Configuration‘ was an interesting film. It was structured around comic madness determined to put on a Shakespearean tragedy. It took risks and was sloppy but it worked because the film itself was mad. The idea surrounded the thing and provided a real situation, one where we were never sure what was play and what ‘real.‘ In true folded fashion, the play within and the film merged.
Some time later we have this: people from a madhouse gather to put on a production of a Mozart opera. The play and film again merge in the predictable way. But this fails, and I think it was because there was too much worry about making engaging characters. These are played by (I am told) well known Australian actors. One of these is Toni Collette who cannot fail to capture us. Each in turn gives us some focused moments. But the in between constitutes long periods of tedium because there never was an investment in the making that situation matter, making it crazy
Posted in 2011
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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