{"id":2200,"date":"2020-06-05T15:07:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T12:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/tommaso-movie-review\/"},"modified":"2020-06-05T15:07:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T12:07:00","slug":"tommaso-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/tommaso-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"#Tommaso Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a305492b0ee8\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a305492b0ee8\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-5' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-5'><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-5' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-5'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/tommaso-movie-review\/#Matt_Zoller_Seitz\" >Matt Zoller Seitz<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/tommaso-movie-review\/#Tommaso_2020\" >Tommaso (2020)<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>Tommaso<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.rogerebert.com\/uploads\/review\/primary_image\/reviews\/tommaso-movie-review-2020\/tommasso-movie-review-2020.jpg\"><\/img><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<section>What becomes of a damaged and destructive man after he works to fix himself? What becomes of his art? His relationships? His life? Abel Ferrara\u2019s \u201cTommaso\u201d explores those questions and others with blunt honesty, never pretending it has the answers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I love this movie. Adore it. Can\u2019t stop talking about it to my friends. I am aware of its problematic aspects. In subject matter and style, it is (intentionally) a bit of a relic, certainly in terms of focusing on a toxic man, or a man who was <em>once<\/em> toxic. And there are other, related issues that I\u2019ll deal with in due course. But the film depicts a subtle, complicated, mostly internal process so thoughtfully\u2014blending humility and go-for-broke nerve\u2014that its flaws ultimately seemed minor to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<section>\n<p>The film stars Willem Dafoe as an actor and filmmaker. Like Ferrara in real life, Tommaso is recovering drug addict and alcoholic living in Rome with his much younger wife and toddler-age daughter. We watch as he works on an unproduced <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"5\" title=\"Science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">science<\/a> fiction movie about a man surviving in a wasteland and learning to love again. We watch him do little things that give him joy, such as walking into a local coffee shop, ordering one small beverage, gulping it down and walking out. We see him attend an AA meeting and talk about his past life and his struggle to stay clean. We watch him apologize to his wife Nikki (Cristina Chiriac) for not being as attentive to her and their daughter Dee Dee (Anna Ferrara) as he should be,\u00a0and discuss how the child they both treasure has come between them as a couple. Their subsequent sex scene is interrupted by that same child calling for mom. Life-sized stuff, all of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s trouble brewing. Tommaso sees Nikki in the park with another man and becomes obsessed with her infidelity, blaming himself, her, the man, and other factors. The hero\u2019s beatific calm crumbles and the film becomes looser, more chaotic and volatile. The filmmaking anchors us to Dafoe\u2019s expressive face as he\u2019s looking at things, or imagining things. The point-of-view is so subjective\u2014Tommaso\u2019s at the center of every scene\u2014that it\u2019s often hard to tell how much of the hero\u2019s anxiety, paranoia and anger are derived from real things and how much is the result of letting his insecurity and paranoia get the better of him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This is all meticulously concieved and executed, despite the directness of the staging and camerawork and the outward impression that the actors are winging it. Even the fantastic or expressionistic or otherwise not-quite-objective storytelling elements are of a piece with the plainer stuff. And after a certain point you have to quit worrying about what\u2019s \u201creally h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ening\u201d and what isn\u2019t, and accept all of it as a method of illustrating what\u2019s happening inside Tommaso.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There is also a strong religious dimension that draws on Ferrara\u2019s long history as a macho Italian Catholic New York filmmaker telling violent, provocative tales of men and women on the edge, chock full of sin, sex, drugs, drinking, and graphic violence. In a lot of ways this movie feels like an answer to, or kindhearted kid brother of, of Ferrara\u2019s \u201cBad Lieutenant,\u201d also about one day in the life of a troubled man, though a far more\u00a0self-destructive and brutal one. You can see a similar relationship between Scorsese\u2019s two films about insomniac New Yorkers in vehicles: \u201cTaxi Driver,\u201d about a lonely cabbie who wants to kill, and \u201cBringing out the Dead,\u201d about a loving EMT who wants to heal. Ferrara\u2019s talking to himself and his filmography, which contains so many alcoholic or drug addicted characters, and that often deal with addiction through metaphor (as in \u201cThe Addiction,\u201d a low-budget drama about vampires).<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<section>\n<p>Of course there\u2019s a metric ton of Christ imagery, as in so many of Ferrara\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a>. Ferrara is deploying religious iconography to connect Tommaso\u2019s lived experience to the moral framework he learned as a child. He is often filmed in crucifixion poses. There\u2019s a scene that plays like a cut moment from Scorsese\u2019s \u201cLast Temptation,\u201d but in post-millennial street clothes. We get hints that Tommaso is self-dramatizing his torment rather than constructively engaging with it: a narcissist nailing himself to cross instead of dealing with what\u2019s in front of him. But we also see Tommaso behaving in accordance with Christ\u2019s teachings, replacing anger with compassion, de-escalating situations that could spiral out of control.<\/p>\n<p>It helps in this kind of movie to have Willem Dafoe play the hero. Not only has he portrayed one of the great cinematic Jesuses (in Scorsese\u2019s \u201cThe Last Temptation of Christ\u201d), he\u2019s played Christ-like figures (notably in \u201cPlatoon\u201d) and secular spiritual pilgrims. He\u2019s also played villains, monsters, abusers, and tempters, always with conviction, sometimes with relish. He channels the dark and light sides here, making us love and pity and root for the character, then loathe him (as Nikki sometimes does). This is one of the great Dafoe performances\u2014a summation of everything he\u2019s done and everything he\u2019s about. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tommasso was a womanizer during his drug days, so we aren\u2019t surprised when he starts to stray, or tries to, out of\u00a0pride, or\u00a0fear of relative impotence (he feels old next to his young wife, and being cuckolded amplifies that a thousandfold). We also watch the suppressed anger start to build within him, to the point where his movements become wilder and more impulsive, and his conversations with Nikki more insinuating, combative, and petty.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As the film unfolds, there are sex scenes, sex fantasies, makeout scenes, and chaste flirtations with younger women (including a student and a fellow AA group member). Some of these are \u201creal\u201d and others are clearly fantasies, and clunky ones at that, settling into a mode reminiscent of the Great Director-driven, very male European art house pictures lauded in the \u201860s and \u201870s. These tendencies are leavened by Ferrara\u2019s attention to psychology. We learn that Nikki might\u2019ve been drawn to Tommaso because her own dad abandoned her at a young age, and there are suggestions that, like the older professor in \u201cMoonstruck\u201d who keeps hitting on female grad students, Tommaso fixates on younger women because he fears death. A student that Tommaso flirts with tells him a story about her father that sounds like it could\u2019ve happened to Nikki. Sexual and romantic patterns repeat themselves in people\u2019s lives, just like cycles of addiction and recovery. Attraction itself is an intoxicant. That\u2019s why people describe being in love or lust as a \u201crush.\u201d They get high from it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<section>\n<p>As a writer-director, Ferrara does what we see Tommaso do in a fantasy: he tears his own heart from his chest and asks his audience to pass it around and take a good look at it. Ferrara shot the movie in his adopted city, Rome, where he settled after relocating from his hometown of New York, a place he now avoids because he associates it with past drug and alcohol abuse. The principal location, Tommaso\u2019s apartment, is Ferrara\u2019s apartment. Chiriac is Ferrara\u2019s wife in real life, and Anna Ferrara is their daughter. Many of the supporting characters in the film could be Ferrara\u2019s friends. I\u2019m guessing about that last part. I don\u2019t know their backstories. But I do know that I\u2019ve never seen most of them before, and their performances have a directness and and simplicity that reminded me of the tradition of Italian Neorealism, which cast nonprofessionals as versions of themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Dafoe brings himself to the project as well\u2014so much that it turns the character into a hybrid of Dafoe and Ferrara. We see Tommaso teach an acting class that includes rituals, dance routines, and role-playing exercises that could have been drawn from Dafoe\u2019s experiences as a drama teacher, or a young actor in Chicago\u2019s Wooster Group. We see him meditate and do yoga exercises in long scenes that confirm that Dafoe is strong and graceful for a man in his sixties. Ferrara often shoots these moments full-frame, Dafoe nearly naked, the better to appreciate how well he\u2019s taken care of himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTommaso\u201d doesn\u2019t play by the rules of most recovery dramas. You don\u2019t follow Tommaso through the usual arc of using, bottoming out, recovering. and making amends. When the film starts, the character is already in recovery. We learn about his past life through his stories. It\u2019s a slow film, on purpose: this man used to rush through life, never paying attention to what\u2019s around him, and now he\u2019s savoring everything because he knows he\u2019s lucky to be alive. We sense his fuller appreciation of life even in throwaway moments, as when cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger\u2019s camera follows him through his apartment, passes him as he stands at a doorway overlooking a terrace, drifts outside and tilts up, taking in the full height of an apartment complex across the way, then settling on the sky and taking a nice, long look at it. A touch of Terrence Malick.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<section>\n<p>An AA buddy coaches Tommaso on his journey by telling him that anger takes up interior space that could be used for positive emotions. Anger is also an addiction, and because you can never really defeat or expel it, only recover from it and manage it, you have to intentionally send good energy out into the world, to contrive reasons to experience the opposite of rage. That means seeking out or inventing situations that will permit the open expression of love and kindness. The AA buddy tells Tommaso that these positive feelings and experiences, generating by feeling and showing and receving love, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">travel<\/a> inside you and occupy space ordinarily claimed by anger. That\u2019s one of the greatest pieces of advice I\u2019ve ever heard in a film. It inspired me try it, and I am here to tell you that it works. Who could have expected Ferrara to make a film that could teach people how to manage anger? I didn\u2019t. I bet he didn\u2019t, either. But here we are.<\/p>\n<p>I will return to Tommaso many times. It has lessons to teach. The teacher knows what he\u2019s talking about because he\u2019s been there, and still <em>is<\/em> there. And he\u2019s so good at making you think that you never feel as if you\u2019re in a classroom. This isn\u2019t Sunday school in film form. This is Jesus going out among the people, talking to farmers and shopkeepers, bartenders and sex workers, fishermen and thieves, in plain language, as described in the Book of Corinthians. Ferrara\u2019s practicing the Gospel of the street. You\u2019re not supposed to figure it out like a puzzle. You\u2019re supposed to listen to the story, then try to figure <em>yourself<\/em> out\u2014knowing that, like Tommaso, you always were, and will always be, a work in progress.<\/p>\n<p>If this film were a person, I would risk my life to save it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<figure>\n<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Matt Zoller Seitz\" src=\"https:\/\/static.rogerebert.com\/uploads\/user\/primary_image\/matt-zoller-seitz\/featured_MZS_portraits-10.jpg\" title=\"Matt Zoller Seitz\"><\/img><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div><figcaption>\n<h5><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Matt_Zoller_Seitz\"><\/span>Matt Zoller Seitz<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large\u00a0of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<section> <\/section>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tommaso movie poster\" itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" src=\"https:\/\/static.rogerebert.com\/uploads\/movie\/movie_poster\/tommaso-2020\/large_tommaso-poster.jpg\" title=\"Tommaso movie poster\"><\/img><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Tommaso_2020\"><\/span> Tommaso (2020) <span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p> <meta content=\"NR\" itemprop=\"contentRating\"><\/meta> Rated NR  <\/p>\n<p> 115 minutes <meta content=\"PT115M\" itemprop=\"duration\"><\/meta><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<section>\n<section>\n<div>\n<div>\n<article target=\"_blank\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.rogerebert.com\/uploads\/blog_post\/primary_image\/features\/connecting-to-a-lost-score-by-johan-johannson-personal-effects\/thumb_pe.jpg\"><\/img><\/p>\n<p> about 22 hours ago <\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<article target=\"_blank\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.rogerebert.com\/uploads\/blog_post\/primary_image\/far-flung-correspondents\/malcolm-x-spike-lees-timeless-sermon\/thumb_x-image.jpg\"><\/img><\/p>\n<p> 2 days ago <\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<article target=\"_blank\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.rogerebert.com\/uploads\/blog_post\/primary_image\/interviews\/the-words-are-so-good-daveed-diggs-on-central-park\/thumb_Central_Park_Photo_010104.jpg\"><\/img><\/p>\n<p> 2 days ago <\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<article target=\"_blank\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.rogerebert.com\/uploads\/blog_post\/primary_image\/features\/short-films-in-focus-lowland-kids\/thumb_lowland-kids-2.jpg\"><\/img><\/p>\n<p> 3 days ago <\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/tommaso-movie-review-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>if you want to watch Movies or Tv Shows go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/dizi.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Tommaso&#8221; What becomes of a damaged and destructive man after he works to fix himself? What becomes of his art? His relationships? His life? Abel Ferrara\u2019s \u201cTommaso\u201d explores those questions and others with blunt honesty, never pretending it has the answers.\u00a0 I love this movie. Adore it. Can\u2019t stop talking about it to my friends&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}