Bad Tales (2020) User Reviews

Could have been a masterpiece

[Ladiloque · 6/10 · 23 May 2020]

It's hard to review such a title: talking about the plot might give away too much or be misleading. I'll just write my observations on the final product: not very useful for those who have to decide whether to watch it or not but well... that's it.

Despite the initial word joke about the source material, I found the story quite inspired - whether it is supposed to be true, made up, a mix, a fairy tale or whatever hermeneutical meta-perspective we are supposed to adopt. Inspired, as was the previous (and first full length) film written and directed by the D'Innocenzo brothers: "La terra dell'abbastanza". Unfortunately I found here the same problems I found there: the overall result is uneven, disjointed, a little inconsistent and often cold.

By cold, I don't mean that it lets the viewer feel the unbridgeable divide between these kids/adolescents and their parents: that divide emerges as an overall unwillingness of adults to understand (or even listen) to kids. By cold I mean that while I wasn't bored wacthing the film, I didn't care either about most of what happened to most of the characters: alienating. Among other things this is mainly due to scenes too stylized/simplistic and to the acting from the kids which - with few exceptions - is not good enough.

At times surgical in a too detached way and others indulging in irrelevant details that just stress the same buttons or feel gratuitously obscure. Finally - and in this worse than "La terra dell'abbastanza" - "Favolacce" feels sometimes inconsistent even for those willing to spend time trying to decipher the code:

• who is this narrator that talks like columnists (and screenplayers..) write, finds quite an intellectual's hobby, but has the most unrefined and boorish accent of the film?
• are we supposed to (re-)read "the Canterville Ghost" to LOVE the movie?
• are we supposed to listen again and again to the badly pronounced/registered dialogues to not miss what's said?.
• are we supposed to give our own answers to these and all the other questions that arise watching this "fable"?

Or the questions ARE the story, and we're just tricked with opaque symbols and vague happenings into believing that there's more (and in this "La terra dell'abbastanza" fared better given its plain Noir status). I don't feel like attempting to reach the "hermetic intellectual heights" of any author: for sure I won't make an exception in this case.

Still some scenes and characters magnetize the viewers' attention and alone deserve to be watched (thanks to both the direction, supporting actors like the very good Ileana D'Ambra and Barbara Chichiarelli and/or the writing).

Surely I won't miss D'Innocenzos' next work: yet - and I'm really unsure which one - I would suggest to the authors to work together with a better screenplayer, a better director or both.

These guys may not be the Coens but I will still be interested to see what they do in the future.

[MOscarbradley · 7/10 · 16 March 2021]

Co-directed by brothers Damiano and Fabio D'Innocenzo "Bad Tales" is a dark, downbeat and really rather unpleasant film seriously lacking in the 'feelgood' factor. It's also rather good in a horrible, queasy kind of way; a film to admire for the obvious skill the filmmakers demonstrate but certainly not a film to like. Set during one summer in a suburb ouside Rome it looks, somewhat forensically, at a couple of very dysfunctional families much in the style of Yorgos Lanthimos. The brothers never quite reach the heights that Lanthimos does but we are definitely in the same perverse ballpark.

Both adults and children are treated with the same off-hand cruelty while their actions are never really explained. There's something almost surreal going on here and not in a good way but then the film is called "Bad Tales" so don't say you weren't warned. I doubt if I'll be returning to it anytime soon but while the brothers may not be the Coens I will certainly be interested to see what they do in the future.

A good tale of Bad People

[Alexander_Blanchett · 7/10 · 25 February 2020]

It was a good Concept and a good cast. The work out of the Concept was fine but with room for improvement. The ending is quite shocking and surprising in a way. But I think they could have done more intensive work with showing the dynamic between the suburbian neighbours. At least I hoped for it. The direction is good, there are many intersting Scenes. The acting of especially the Kids who are on the Center stage of that film is fantastic and already that is enough to make it worthwhile to watch this film. The Soundtrack and look is great. The screenplay is probably the weakest part. But generally its still a good film, with many intersting characters (all of them Kind of unlikeable - especially the adult ones). Good european Cinema.

Pretentious and contrived, badly written 2* out of 10*

[velvet_zoo · 13 November 2020]

This Italian Swiss TV coproduction with Sky TV won a screenplay award at the Berlin Film Festival. We saw it in a group of cinephiles. In the discussion afterwards we could not find one reason how this could have been possible. Maybe every other film in the contest was written worse, but that is hard to imagine. Maybe the jury wanted to play a practical joke. Even the narrator in the film apologizes for the senslessness and boredom of these random and badly written script. Any of the scenes could have been replaced with any other. It makes no difference. It was sad to witness how the art of film has deteriorated both in the making and in a venue of appreciation that once held some prestige. Nice cinematography though, one star for that and one for casting.

Go and see it if you can

[nikolalesajatulo · 7/10 · 9 August 2020]

It's a good movie. Plot is well worked but they didn't really make the best of it. Dialogues are solid. All together it's a good movie but not as good as it could've been.

Good but I didn't totally buy it

[Dello_ · 7/10 · 19 July 2020]

"Favolacce" is undoubtably a good movie, thanks to the inspired screenplay, the anxious score, the solid acting and the frustrating direction. And I say frustrating because the D'Innocenzo's brothers intentionally chose the camera angles that were the less adapt to the scenes in order to provoke a sense of discomfort in the viewer. And this discomfort is what the movie leaves after the credits, a general bitterness for what happened in it. The complaint I have, that is the reason why I didn't love it, is the setting. The ultra degraded suburb filled with pessimistic, poor and angry people similar to the one represented in "Dogman" is excessive and distant from the actual reality. And I'm not saying there aren't difficult situations but here is a bit too extreme and I felt a certain detachment from the characters because they really felt fictional to me (maybe the only one that I perceived as plausible is the one played by Elio Germano). And probably it actually was the intention of the filmmakers in order to tell some tales, as the title suggests, but I would have liked it more if the context was more real and then I think that what happens in the movie would have hit me a lot harder than it did. In conclusion "Favolacce" is good, surely a fine watch, but the level of appreciation you will feel is correlated to how much you will buy its setting and its characters.

A movie that tries too much to be something it's not.

[lowob · 1/10 · 30 July 2020]

Favolacce is just a prentious movie.

The DOP is at times really good, but most of the times is trying too much to appear impressive for its own sake: it's like you bought your niece the new camera he was asking for and you just explained to him the rule of thirds.

None of the characters has a clear or interesting arc and there's no main plot pushing the movie forward. Everyone is passively waiting for the story to end. Even the worst tale has the most basic story arc or a main character pushing the story forward, something that the narrator does for the first 5 minutes of the movie, before completely disappearing.

The sound design is at times really lacking and you can barely make out what the characters are saying (especially in the bus scene).

Overall is definitely not worth watching and it is kind of sad, because I really thought that the trailer looked promising and maybe something good would come out of Italy again.

Noise and silence

[Lucian-Alexe · 8/10 · 26 February 2020]

Seen at Berlinale 2020, it is a film that looks at the relationships between parents and children. There is a lot going on in this little Italian suburb, but one thing is for sure, the parents make much more noise than the children. It is a story about growing up or never managing to do so. Worth seeing.

Didn't like any part of it

[naxia_88 · 1/10 · 26 July 2020]

Just a strange movie. Didn't understand the senso of it even after reading the reviews. Just a waste of time.

An extraordinary look at ordinary lives

[Kiddo_bear · 9/10 · 2 March 2020]

My personal favorite of the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and winner of the Berlinale Bear for best script. The film introduces itself as: A true story inspired by a false story. The false story is not very inspired. Sounds mysterious? It better be, for this is a film enjoyed more the less you know. Okay, I'll give you this much: a dark look at life in the subjrbs outside Rome, where people's aspiration clash with reality. The story of a summer broken down into a sequence of immersive scenes, each containing its own drama and driven by an atmosphere of suspense. All is mostly viewed through the eyes of the kids. Highly recommended! On a side note: this is the second film of the D'Innocenzo Brothers that I've seen, and it is astonishing to observe how much they've matured as film makers and story tellers. Their first film - La Terra de'l abbastanza - had all the pieces but lacked a forceful plot to tie them together. Favolacce deliverd this force, in a unique way.

pretentious, tedious, snooty and useless

[horrorules · 1/10 · 12 July 2020]

This movie is one of the wrost and pathetic movie ever made, and is so sad that many people enhance it in this way,an improbable, ridiculous story, and the D'innocenzo brothers are certainly not Stefano Sollima, but two small directors who believe themselves to be the authors and this film is proof of this, almost two hours of absolute nothing, all written in a rough and improbable way. The ending is some of the worst I've ever seen.

If you want to see REAL Italian cinema then watch films like Suburra, They call Jeeg Robot or the traitor, forget this pile of garbage

The end of great Italian cinema

[paolo-pochettino · 1/10 · 24 May 2020]

The choice of both the government and the main producers of Italian films in the last 30 years has been mainly concentrated on producing many films instead of good films. For this reason there are a lot of "parasites" fighting over very few funds. Who is the most determined to get this money? Usually nepothistic gangs made up of the son of someone, the brother of someone else, the friend of the first, the lover of the last. At present Italian cinema is in the hands of a group of classmates who live in Rome. There is by now a class of low talent actors, directors, writers shooting films near their homes (Rome suburbs) and in Roman dialect which they evidently speak to each other in. Of couse, the actors are only able to act in this dialect! And who cares if I am from Milano and understand nothing? The film in question features the cultural references that all these films have: a dirty suburb, cigarettes, swear words, and underdogs. Already seen at least 20 times. Give us back our great Italian cinema! This is only garbage (from the few phrases I understood).

What is going on here

[strazhnyk · 9/10 · 27 February 2020]

Lot's of grim and dark stories of the some families living in the outskirts of Rome, who's lives and faiths are tied somehow to each other. The creators try their best to show how far could people aggression go, how careless and stupid decisions lead to more stupid decisions. There are moments where you laugh, the moments where you fill quite embarrassed for the character's actions in the movie, and there are moments that you want to cry because of deep grief... Modern Italian Cinema at its best, you should decide if you like it or not.

''flat deutsch''...

[ops-52535 · 4/10 · 23 February 2022]

Is an expression ive heard , but flat italian is so insanely impossible, due to the alps dividing the blood and temper of culture, but believe it or not, this was a c-flat inemotional horizontal coaster ive ridden for a few years.

Its a couple of family sagas thats the main subject, loads of bad and misunderstood parenting, children that react on reflexes rather than sane decisions, where the incestous sides are very close, and the love and hate aspect rigid but crucial.

But its boringly plotted and written the child cast do above, the adult cast a bit below average, there are long on distance shoots that doent at all switch on one imagination, and if you have that, then skip it, itll ruin your ability. Its saggy and slow, there are twists in the bodybag but they seem rather unrealistic and may happen 1/100000000 timesm a year.

No this was a messy wannabe hunky stroll at the hypercultural mainstream of socialrealism to shock us all, but it wont. I believe youll have to be italian in soul and spirits to contain something outta this. The grumpy old man gives 4 outta 10 stars, not recommended.

a brothers grim tale

[Iwould · 8/10 · 19 June 2020]

This movie stages action in a domestic and familiar environment, where violence never explodes, because violence is not a disturbance of that social order, but a pillar: it's behind every gesture, every word, every thought, it's something sinister always lurking inside the grownups (in a minor but important scene, during a birthday party the adults say horrible words towards a mother - but in whispers, like if they were haunted).

Parents shows and expose their kids as trophies, not caring for them but for themselves: in another scene a young father is pleased by the driving skills of his own son and proudly screams "You are like me!" - something that the kid is obviously not willing to be. Generations basically ignore each other's feeling: and ignorance is the trigger of silence, silence is the trigger of despair, and despair the trigger of violence.

Thanks to silence, conflict is invisible, and for this reason it becomes eventually inescapable: and the surprising epilogue is the only moment when peace is restored in the families, as the parents for the first time looks like they are actually caring for their children. We hear from the narrator at the beginning that everything in this story is at the same time true and false: and eventually we understand that this mix creates a scaring thing, called reality. This movie is good cinema and great advice, you should see it.

Unbelievably awful!!!!

[slrarbabi · 1/10 · 31 May 2021]

I watched the movie until the end and I could not believe how awful it was! Absolutely a waste of time!!!

Steamy pile of ....

[egon_ira · 1/10 · 7 July 2021]

Felt the urge of writing this review after reading the ludicrous positive reviews (whose genuinity I SERIOUSLY doubt).

This parody of a movie has no silver lining: script is trite, acting is amateurish in the wrong way, screenplay is made of banalities mumbled by the characters throughtout the whole movie.

As for the characters, I felt no interest whatsoever for their fate, even kids - who take most of the screentime - are so obnoxious you can't feel any empathy for their miserable lives.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a depressive/disturbing movie if it's well made or the actors deliver ("Biutiful" by Iñarritu is the perfect example of that), but this pile of manure has no artistic value, and despite clocking in at just 98 minutes it feels like it's neverending... avoid at all cost!

A Brilliant Movie by Italian Most Promising Directors

[hugo-diego-garcia · 9/10 · 16 May 2020]

Favolacce is an outstanding movie by the supremely gifted D'Innocenzo brothers who delivered an impressive piece of art. You wouldn't expect a movie like that to have been made by young directors as it shows supreme maturity. The story is fascinating and the end quite shocking. I truly encourage anybody who wants a voyeuristic glimpse at a Italian suburban families look like and its complex relationships should definitely watch it. Memorable!

Pointless.

[teodoramonika · 2/10 · 31 January 2022]

1.5 / 10.

I thought the film would be interesting, difficult and sad given that the theme is on children. From the beginning there is no closer information about the characters, for some, even at the end of the film I do not know their names. I am not introduced to the story and therefore I am losing interest. There is no concrete action, it is slow and there are many irrelevant and boring scenes, as well as idleness. That makes it annoying and I was on the verge of turning it off. In the end, absolutely nothing happened and I concluded that the film was totally pointless. This is a movie that I will forget in 5 minutes because I have nothing to remember it by.

What an amazing work

[merciecapietro · 10/10 · 22 May 2020]

From writing, directing to acting I think we can use the word masterpiece. As usual we received a memorable surprise from D'Innocenzo Brothers who clearly know and understand their subject. No matter if you're working in this industry or a movie lover this movie is a must see! Can't wait to see their next project.

When aspiration meets reality

[zivkoacting · 9/10 · 17 May 2020]

The story will touch anyone as we've all experienced the difference between what we picture in our mind at first and reality. D'Innocenzo brothers will dive you into the harsh reality of a family which lives in the suburbs outside Rome. This time again, their movie is worth seeing !

dont mind the low ranks, just watch it

[alex201201 · 9/10 · 9 October 2021]

An intense movie

a journey into barbarian souls, in a God forgotten land, where I live too

pure 100% disturbing truth, filmed and rendered with solid class.

Realistic, Inventive, Disturbing -

[eddyan · 9/10 · 6 December 2020]

My first review. The film is not easy to watch, because it draws you in and exposes you to situations you wouldn't want to think about. Everybody's acting is good, children's acting is very good. The plot is also interesting. It makes you think a lot about the value of life and family in particular. I recommend seeing it.

Cinema Omnivore - Bad Tales (2020) 7.8/10

[lasttimeisaw · 8/10 · 19 April 2021]

"If adults are shrouded by malaise and crippled by their own petty failings, D'Innocenzo brothers devise something more wicked in the school kids' surreptitious rebellion, and what is so horrifying is not the action itself, but the gaping negligence, how those parents can let the danger fall through the cracks when it is right in front of their eyes every day. When BAD TALES finally unleashes its sinister tragedy (Lino Musella leaves an ambiguous mark in a limited role as the kids' abetting professor who holds a grudge against the community alter being hard done by), it doesn't pounce upon you like a shock, the disturbing discovery is arranged as a well-measured reactive long take of Bruno (before allotting a full shot of the upshot), and Germano is singularly exceptional to pull off the brothers' tricky maneuver, Bruno is a man who is overpowered by sheer devastation, and his delayed reactions are viscerally harrowing to the core. You can dislike Bruno like nobody's business, but credit when credit is due, Germano's protean acting is of the first order."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks.

A uncompromising look at the brutality of existence

[gsilecchia · 8/10 · 21 April 2024]

In an atmosphere shrouded in the gray banality of the Roman outskirts, "Favolacce" by the D'Innocenzo Brothers offers a raw and uncompromising look into the lives of some families grappling with their own frustrations and contradictions. It's not a masterpiece, but rather a film that manages to capture some peculiarities of the human condition with a certain degree of effectiveness. The portrayal of family dynamics, laden with tensions made palpable by tight dialogues and direction unafraid to explore the darkest corners of the human psyche, is one of the film's most intriguing elements. Despite their evident dysfunctionality, the characters manage to evoke a certain empathy in the viewer, thanks also to the strong performances of the cast. However, "Favolacce" is not without its flaws. The narrative, while incisive and direct, risks at times to be too raw and lacking in nuances, leaving little room for the complexity of the characters and their relationships. Some scenes, moreover, might come off as overly verbose or repetitive, diluting the emotional impact of the situations depicted. Nevertheless, the film still manages to keep the viewer engaged until the end, thanks also to its ability to provoke reflections and debates on universal themes such as love, family, and the very meaning of human existence. While not a perfect work, "Favolacce" stands out for its audacity and frankness in depicting the brutality of everyday life, without seeking easy consolations or pre-packaged solutions."Favolacce" proves to be a good film, with its peculiarities and its flaws. Despite not reaching peaks of excellence, it still manages to offer an interesting and provocative look into human nature, inviting the viewer to reflect on their own choices and relationships. A must-see for those in search of an intense and stimulating cinematic experience.