Taglines: Desire knows no bounds.
Facing Windows movie storyline. Giovanna, though still very young, has been married to her devoted husband Filippo for 9 years. She divides her time between her job at the poultry factory, looking after her 2 children, and baking cakes for the local cafe, bearing the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. The strain on Giovanna is increased when Filippo, in his kindness, brings home a refined elderly gentleman who has lost his memory.
In trying to help this man Giovanna reluctantly spends more and more time with him, slowly uncovering clues to the mystery of his buried past: a number tatooed onto his forearm, his expertise in the art of the patisserie and the name, Simon… Increasingly irritated by her husband’s softness, her fantasies of the ideal are projected onto the handsome mysterious neighbor whom she watches in the hope of adding a little excitement to her life.
Facing Windows (Italian: La Finestra di Fronte) is a 2003 Italian movie directed by Ferzan Özpetek and starring Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Raoul Bova, Massimo Girotti, Serra Yılmaz, Filippo Nigro, Maria Grazia Bon, Massimo Poggio, Ivan Bacchi, Chiara Andreis and Veronica Bruni.
About the Story
1943, Italy: In the darkest days of the war, a young baker’s apprentice suddenly murders his employer before taking to the empty midnight streets, frantically searching for someone or something… a haunting image of passion, rage and desperation.
Sixty years later: Passion seems to be missing from the life of Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), a young wife and mother of two who appears to have found some sense of domestic peace.
Her husband, Filippo (Filippo Nigro), is a good man, but saddled with a poor-paying night shift, and Giovanna supplements her own full-time income as a poultry inspector by baking pastries and deserts for a local pub.
With more than enough to do, Giovanna isn’t too pleased when Filippo insists on bringing home a confused elderly man (Massimo Girotti) they find wandering in the streets. In and out of lucidity, the old man utters a single name (“Simone”), and to appease Giovanna, Filippo insists that he will take the man to a police station the following morning. But by the next evening, the old man is still there. Once again, Filippo has let her down.
However, the older man’s presence and the mystery of his identity begin to have a profound effect on Giovanna. When she begins her weekly baking, the old man can suddenly recall the secret of how to make perfect flour for pastries. At the same time, Giovanna continues her indulgence of gazing out her apartment window to the flat opposite hers, where a handsome young bachelor lives. At a chance meeting in a bar Giovanna learns that the bachelor, Lorenzo (Raoul Bova) is a banker who is due to be transferred to a new branch.
Her neighbor urges Giovanna to have a fling with Lorenzo, but their connection deepens when, one night, Lorenzo aids Giovanna in locating the older man, who has wandered off. As the questions about the old man grow more and more complex, and the secrets of his past are slowly revealed, Lorenzo and Giovanna grow closer, equally consumed by the fate of this gentle old soul and their own obvious attraction.
With Lorenzo’s departure growing more imminent, and as the old man begins to slowly put the pieces of his life back together, Giovanna finds herself facing a series of choices about her life, her family, and her future, striking an eerily similar chord to the fateful choice that a young baker’s apprentice had to make sixty years ago.
Facing Windows (2004)
Finestra di Fronte
Directed by: Ferzan Özpetek
Starring: Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Raoul Bova, Massimo Girotti, Serra Yılmaz, Filippo Nigro, Maria Grazia Bon, Massimo Poggio, Ivan Bacchi, Chiara Andreis, Veronica Bruni
Screenplay by: Gianni Romoli, Ferzan Özpetek
Cinematography by: Gianfilippo Corticelli
Film Editing by: Patrizio Marone
Costume Design by: Catia Dottori
Art Direction by: Andrea Crisanti
Music by: Andrea Guerra
MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexuality.
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: February 28, 2003 (Italy), June 18, 2004 (USA)
Views: 178
