Cycle index

Genova

dir. Michael Winterbottom / UK, Italy 2008 / 94’

subtitles: Polish and English

Season 0_1_0, Antichrist, Cherry Blossoms – Hanami, Coco Before Chanel, Delta, Genova, Gomorrah, Happy-Go-Lucky, Her Name Is Sabine, Jesus Christ Saviour, Joe Strummer – The Future Is Unwritten, Let It Rain, Liverpool, Lorna’s Silence, Man on Wire, Nightwatching, Promise Me This, Quiet Chaos, Rumba, Strawberry Wine, Sweet Rush, Terribly Happy, The Edge of Heaven, The Class, The Country Teacher, The Karmazov Brothers, Tulpan, Waltz with Bashir Section index

Cast

Colin Firth, Catherine Keener, Willa Holland, Perla Haney-Jardine, Hope Davis

Film description

Mary and Kelly are driving in a car with their mother. Mary covers Marianne's eyes for fun and the car comes off the road. The woman is killed. Five months later, the two girls go to Genoa for a holiday with their father, Joe. All three of them live with the burden of the loss of someone they loved, each in his or her own way.

Michael Winterbottom's film is maybe a little conventional, but it is a moving intimate study of mourning. There are three different people and three versions of experiencing the suffering, three separate stories which will meet only at the end of the film. The seemingly inadequate background of the sunny Italian metropolis is in fact a reflection of the main characters' emotions. They simple do not accept the sad truth that something has passed and cannot be retrieved. Winterbottom's Genova is a distant but clear reference to the famous Don't Look Now by Nicolas Roeg.

Ania Lechowicz