Montalbano and Me: Andrea Camilleri (2014 TV Movie) User Reviews

Stilted Interviews with the Highly Successful Author of the Montalbano Books

[l_rawjalaurence · 6/10 · 28 February 2016]

In Italian culture, Andrea Camilleri is something of a cult figure. Not only has he been the author of the highly successful series of INSPECTOR MONTALBANO books, but he is an award-winning theater director and trainer. Luza Zingaretti, who plays the older Montalbano, is one of his former learners.

This program consists of a series of extended interviews with the eighty-plus writer and director. We learn that he does not take life too seriously, and intersperses much of his professional work with extended leisure time. The Montalbano books are in fact written extremely rapidly, in a matter of days, and Camilleri has the plot and characterization worked out well in advance before setting down to write.

Now a highly wealthy individual, Camilleri enjoys the trappings of the good life with a large Rome apartment and a seaside villa in Sicily.

That is about all we learn in this program, where the interviews veer towards the sycophantic, giving Camilleri the chance to expound his homespun philosophy without any rigorous questioning. It's interesting to see the background of Montalbano's creator, but as a person he does not seem especially engaging.

Too much interviewer, too sycophantic

[fb-69233 · 5/10 · 25 May 2016]

I agree with another reviewer about the sycophancy of this documentary, and that extends to the interviewer, too. She has FAR too much screen time, especially for an international audience, who quite frankly don't know her from Adam.

Disturbing for me was the disrespect shown to Camilleri's wife. There is a part where the interviewer and Camilleri chuckle together when he admits that at 83, he is too old to continue his serial infidelity. Ha ha ha, they laugh together at this, at the expense of his long-suffering wife. Yuck!

Another reviewer got a few points wrong, probably due to the Italian/Sicilian being spoken, and the sometimes faulty subtitles: the Montalbano books take Camilleri 3 months to write (not 3 days), and he owns a modest apartment in Sicily (not a villa by the sea - that was a property once owned by playwright Pirandello where the author and interviewer were strolling at the end of the documentary).

Too much interviewer, too little clear-eyed discussion of the books and author and his creation of the characters in the series. Some of the shots were too brief to understand. There was too much of Rome and not enough of Sicily. The music was the best thing about it.