sp2303 Le conseguenze dell'amore (2004)is a beautifully made film that takes small carefully positioned steps towards its ending that need to be savoured in order to be enjoyed. From the contrasting landscapes, to the tightly enclosed world that the hero inhabits, we are taken by the Director and controlled from the very moment we enter the hotel. We, like the hero, will never escape from the suffocating intensity and paradoxical monotony of his criminally driven, Mafia world. That the film resists Mafia stereotypes whilst revelling in them makes it all the more successful. The concrete grave, the inevitable brutal executions and overwhelming maleness are laid bare and exposed for what they are. Just brutality and business, and no more. Life is about being part of the corporate machine that is organised crime and not about love or living for self, family or others. Our hero is indeed a hero in that he gives up his life for the sake of the touch of the beautiful barmaid, the resolution of the misery suffered by his only neighbours in the hotel and in order to escape his decorative prison. The consequences of love are indeed beautiful and brutal at the same time. See it!!

Framescourer A stylish, touching Italian film. Toni Servillo's ascetic, crisply presented hotel-hermit Girolamo barely speaks and looks thoroughly bored. Not promising. However, we are engaged with a double hit of Girolamo's mysteriousness and the peripheral characters that he can't avoid in and around the hotel. Not least of these is the barmaid, the dark and irresistibly fragrant Olivia Magnani. She reaches out to him - the rest of the film are the consequences of his piqued humanity.I liked the editing, the use of a broad and varied soundtrack and a fresh, non-judgemental attitude to some familiar set pieces - murder, drug use, lust. There's no specifically existential narrative. It's equally cool and noble but no issue is made of any of these facets. Rather it's a straightforwardly told story in which all these themes are interdependent on one another. 6/10

Tony221268 This is one of the worst pieces of cinema I have seen in some time. This is also my first review so you can tell I must hate this film at lot.Don't get me wrong, I like my serious films. I don't like Hollywood too much, I tend to like French, Italian, offbeat US or anything that tries to communicate something sensible.But this was awful. Why? 1. The plot (such as it was) was entirely unbelievable, even though the director seems to be hinging everything on a feeling of realism.2. The main character has nothing to recommend him. Does he smoke for coolness or to show us his angst? For goodness sake this guy is meant to be an ex-dodgy mafia lawyer. Are we meant to care more because that he is also one of the meanest unfriendly people you could ever meet? And he smokes...so he must have deep personal issues. Pop psychology at it's best. In the final moments, I almost cheered as he gets buried in the cement. Best place for him. And I thought that was about the only good scene. Or maybe that was because it was so close the final credits.3. The entirely tired and unbelievable interest in the main character from the beautiful girl. She was there simply because beautiful girls always have odd sexual relationships with old, old men with a deep and meaningful personality (as demonstrated by smoking). Happens all the time. In really bad films that is.4. The pace was so leaden. I like slow, I like careful. But this was just deathly.5-50 a bunch of other stuff that I really can't be bothered to write.Awful.

MarcChrys Very slow, dull, enigmatic film. MAybe the kind of film Jean-Luc Godard would have made had he been Italian. Certainly conveys how tedious, repetitious, joyless and empty a person's life can be, but I don't usually go to the cinema to find that out! The plot (such as it is) doesn't convince. Why a gorgeous hotel receptionist (an exception to the dullness of the film) would be the slightest bit interested in a moody, chain-smoking, silent loner who speaks in 'deep' aphorisms baffles me. Very difficult to feel any sympathy with the main character. One feels like shaking him by the throat and telling him to 'snap out of it!'. His brother is a much more human character. The ending is inconclusive and puzzling. Everyone in the cinema (when I saw the film) went out muttering about how they nearly fell asleep. Of course, it shouldn't have to be a Hollywood Bruce Willis-style 'shhot-em-up' and 'crash-bang' fiesta, but a little bit of energy and action would have made it a lot more thrilling. One of the best Italian films ever?! Pleease...An art-house, curiosity at best.