Lamerica

1994
Lamerica
7.4| 1h52m| en| More Info
Released: 09 September 1994 Released
Producted By: Canal+
Country: Italy
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Fiore, an Italian conman, arrives in post Communist Albania with Gino, his young apprentice, to set up a shoe factory that will never open. The con requires a native Albanian, so they designate Spiro, an impoverished and confused former political prisoner as chairman of the board. When Fiore returns to Italy to get government funds for the project, Spiro unexpectedly disappears and Gino sets out on a journey to find him. The search leads him to discover Spiro's tragic personal history and witness Albanian poverty firsthand.

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Reviews

MartinHafer This movie started slowly for me but got better and better as it progressed. It's the story of a couple sleazy Italian con men who were looking to strike it rich in post-Communist Albania. They were creating a fake company and needed a stooge to be their Albanian CEO. For this, they want someone who is completely forgotten, so they go to a hell-hole that had been a prison for political prisoners and pick out an addle-brained man who'd been incarcerated there for almost 50 years. The way this poor soul is treated is pretty pathetic, however the irony occurs when the younger crook is stranded in Albania and his car is vandalized. He THINKS everything will be fine since he is a foreigner. But, he too becomes a refugee like so many Albanians. At this point, the "crazy old man" shows he isn't quite as crazy as you'd thought and despite his incarceration, he has not lost his humanity--all this being revealed as the Italian jerk slowly loses everything he has. It's an amazing juxtaposition and this makes this strange movie so worth seeing.
RaquelitaP This Italian film is actually set behind the fall of dictatorship in Albania, a country once part of Soviet rule.LoVerso's part in the movie as one of the protagonists is wonderfully acted. The first film I had seen him in was Il Ladro di Bambini. LoVerso takes his characters and challenges them, creating deep personalities that continue to develop throughout the film.I would recommend this film solely based on the wonderful acting by all actors in the film.
George Parker "Lamerica" takes the audience through the devastation of post-communist Albania as it follows the odyssey of a young Italian man who has come to make some easy money but finds himself caught up in the same curious mix of hopeful despair etched into the faces of people he's come to swindle. The film has little plot, the feel of a documentary, and most of the scenes are perfunctory. Nonetheless, "Lamerica" will beg a strange fascination from those who find grizzled realism interesting.
edwafor I thought this was an incredible film with a story that was in many ways simple, yet complex in dealing with redemption. An Italian swindler goes to Albania to make a few quick lire, only to get swallowed up by the depth of the Albanian situation.