Especially on Sunday

A trilogy of Italian short films, all written by Tonino Guerra yet directed by three separate directors, Especially on Sunday perfectly captures the spirit of modern Italian filmmaking while managing to conjure shades of Fellini, Zeffirelli, and Antonioni along the way. Bookended by a lyrical short involving a young boy and his infatuation with all things avian, the film opens with The Blue Dog. Directed by Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), it's a nostalgic, humorous tale of a curmudgeonly barber and his love/hate relationship with the stray dog that wanders into his life one day and then refuses to leave. When the dog is finally wounded by an irate neighbor's rifleshot, the barber is astounded to find himself obsessed with the missing animal and begins a search that eventually takes him high into the Marrechian hillside to discover the truth. Lyrical, touchingly humorous, and gorgeously shot, Tornatore ably brings to this short much of the magic that made Cinema Paradiso such a hit. Taking a turn for the more serious, Bruno Ganz stars in Giuseppe Bertolucci's (Bernardo's younger brother, yes) Especially on Sunday, which features the German actor as a ladies' man who finds his attempts at wooing a young girl sideswiped at every turn by her peculiar male companion. It's an odd tale, with Ganz's character trying to impress the couple by allowing them to view his collection of “women in the lieu” photographs. Rife with symbolism, the film is again gorgeous and strangely off-putting, though, as always, Ganz in impressive. Somber is the key word for Giordana's haunting Snow on Fire, which concerns the confession of an old women who has been spying on the lovemaking of her son and daughter-in-law via a loose plank in her bedroom floor. Curious, nostalgic, and widowed, the old woman (Maria Fellini, the great director's sister) and the young girl acknowledge each other's presence while leaving the young man in the dark. Perhaps that's for the best. When the old woman passes away, the young bride confesses the sin to the local priest -- as did the voyeuristic mother -- bringing the story full circle. Beautifully shot and acted, all three tales link together in ways that few short film collections ever do. There's a shared feeling of muted sorrow alongside tiny glimpses of joy that give the whole a deliciously delicate power.