Le atmosfere di Garrone mi fanno sempre rabbrividire. Gran bel fim.

The director knows where he can stuff it! (pun intended)

Definitely one of the best Italian movie of recent years. The movie manages to create and maintain, for its entire duration, a disturbing and mysterious atmosphere and also a high degree of realism, thanks to the naturalness of the acting. A timeless story about the cruelty of nature and the impossibility of being normal. Very good.

Definitely one of the best Italian movie of recent years. The movie manages to create and maintain, for its entire duration, a disturbing and mysterious atmosphere and also a high degree of realism, thanks to the naturalness of the acting. A timeless story about the cruelty of nature and the impossibility of being normal. Very good.

Forse uno dei film italiani davvero originali degli ultimi anni. Girato tra due città anomale, Caserta e Cremona, un nano imbalsamatore colluso con la mafia, un giovane alla ricerca di un punto di riferimento, una donna dalla labbra rifatte che si inserisce nel loro strano rapporto. con una regia, degli attori e una confezione veramente innovativi in Italia.

Tra una sporca e triste Campania e un'uggiosa e altrettanto triste Cremona, questo film narra la storia di due persone. Forse di tre. E' l'unica cosa che si può dire di questo film. E' malinconico spesso e volentieri, ma oltre a questo non si capisce cos'altro voglia essere. Una storia d'amore? Una storia di tradimenti? Una storia di criminalità? O forse nessuno degli esempi portati. Ernesto Mahieux è super, gli altri si arrangiano come possono.

Matteo Garrone's "The Embalmer" tells the story of Valerio, a waiter,(with the face and body of a God)who is taken under the wing of a troll-like man with bad dental work, Peppino, who makes Valerio and offer he can't refuse. After Valerio accepts Peppino's offer to work as an apprentice, he quits his job and is kicked out of his apartment. Along with the job, Peppino allows Valerio to move in with him. Things get rather creepy as Peppino introduces Valerio to his occupation and lets him in on a job where he extracts baggies of drugs out of human corpses. As the movie progresses Peppino gets more obsessed with Valerio and the relationship turns strange as Peppino sets up sexual tristes with two girls that usually end up with things moving to the homeoerotic side. When Valerio meets a girl, Deborah, she suspects that Peppino is looking for more than friendship and decides to expose him. The performances are very good and the psychosexual power struggle is developed well, but the mafia subplot and some interesting scenes are truncated. Still, it is an interesting movie about deception and obsession. Many will find it a bore, but the characters and what motivates them is what is at the core of this film.

Geras europietiskas nenuobodus filmas. Apie maza vyruka Pepe, kuris pernelyg daug susidomi visai graziu jaunuoliu Valeri. Nenoriu list i dideles interpretacijas apie zmogaus vidine pusiausvyra ir nuokrypi nuo normu, bet cia buvo tikrai twisted tale. Teko ilgai ieskoti is kur gaut sita filma ir visiskai negaila to laiko besikapstant internete. Verta! Ir soundtrackas neblogas. Toks bekuriantis atmosfera.

Two ticks and no dog.

Matteo Garrone's deeply morbid subjective reflection from Italy is an insightful musing of two characters, and then a third which works as an agitator. The short man finds the tall man at the zoo, where he is watching a vulture. The short guy, named Peppino, is a sweet talker. He's about 50, balding, under 5 feet tall. The tall guy, named Valerio, is a head turner, about 20, attractive, over 6 feet tall. As they struggle to recall where they've met before, the perspective periodically shifts from the humans to the vulture, a bird that survives by detecting dead meat. The picture is mangled, the sound is dampened, and we get an inverted look of the bird blinking its eyes. Valerio says animals are his strongest interest. Funny, says Peppino, they're also his. He is a taxidermist. Peppino, with a light manner and a genial grin, is a beast of prey who likes to entice young men with his money and favors. Valerio, who is told extraordinary things about his Adonis-like looks, is not very smart, and likes to be charmed. Peppino works by artifice, taking Valerio to clubs and hiring hookers for parties; the two friends end up in bed with the girls, and Valerio doesn't see that for Peppino, the girls are the snare and he is the sitting duck. The Embalmer is adept at camouflaging its real essence and rattling us with the shifts of the plot. Among the movie's charades are not all overstated, but eerily implicit. Does Peppino see himself as a homosexual, or as a philanderer who likes good buddies and is open-minded in bed? Does Valerio know Peppino wants him? Does Valerio favor Peppino's money or Deborah's abundant sexual skill? Is Valerio totally retarded? Twice he infuriates Deborah by standing her up; he continues go along with Peppino's insistence upon just one more time. Is it a defect or an advantage of the film that we don't always know what occurs? Another intended question I think, as we ponder over Valerio, a babe in the woods who, when he's not with the one he loves, loves the one he's with, if he loves at all. This incredibly unsettling and implacable experience takes place largely in Italian beach towns, but in a gray season, against chilled, steeled skies. The sea is nonetheless far away and dejected, and Garrone's images bleed the life out of some scenes. The music is a sobbing, deeply haunting jazz abstraction. This is not a comedy or a sexploitation pic, but a prurient matter concerning two obsessed pursuants and their prey, whose physicality may have made life such a breeze for him that he never got the dexterity to live it. It may sound absurd that a balding old midget could seduce an apparently heterosexual young Apollo out of the arms of an insatiable woman, but after Deborah checks Peppino out, she knows she has to take him seriously. What the short man wants, he goes after with skill, guile…and desperate longing. And it's compelling to watch him maneuver.

Fair. Ernesto Mahieux is just wonderful.

Di una tristezza sconfinata per una storia di scarso interesse. Apprezzabile il tentativo, assai meno il risultato.

Film bellissimo, livido, surreale e inquietante. Straordinario Mahieux!

Tedious, creepy in the worst way, and not helped by shoddy lighting.

Read some of the other review and critics, and then don't rent the movie. It is a real bore. Not even a good idea for a movie. The director and screen writer should have been fired. Midway the thing just drags on and on and on.. Not recommended.

Forse uno dei film italiani davvero originali degli ultimi anni. Girato tra due città anomale, Caserta e Cremona, un nano imbalsamatore colluso con la mafia, un giovane alla ricerca di un punto di riferimento, una donna dalla labbra rifatte che si inserisce nel loro strano rapporto. con una regia, degli attori e una confezione veramente innovativi in Italia.

Taxidermia mas un colaborador"valerio" dan ganas de embalsamarlo durante toda la pelicula (especie de la bella y la bestia, en version gay a lo italiano)

Belle musiche, uno dei pochi film italiani recenti con una bella recitazione

inquietante ma bello. un po' raccapricciante, ma alla fine ricominceresti a vederlo...

Both movies of Garrone are the best innovative example of contemporary italian cinema. The story is thrilling without ever being either dejà-vu or easy. A must see, if you can.