Many women and few engines for Michael Mann a director who usually impresses with the aesthetics, the visual dimension of his cinema, which even manages to become a moral story. Accompanying, Miami Vice: His last works, chronologically, were only realized in their greatness much later and are currently in the process of being re-evaluated and discovered.
It’s hard to imagine a similar path for Ferrari, a movie that should have brought back the master of cinema and instead gave us pleasure. another biopic based on the House of Gucci. In other words, Americans who set out to educate powerful businessmen about the history of Italy in the 1900s but failed to do so outside of the stereotype. Maybe, as the Commander teaches usin order to embody the truth in a certain vision of Bel Paese, one must be born and raised there.
Michael Mann however clearly not at ease among the hills of Modena, far from the neon lights, from the metropolitan twilight, from the violence inherent in American nature. The Emilian hills are not dear to him, but hostile, alien, filmed awkwardly, without vision, without inspiration.
The director, who usually impresses with the visual power of his directing, leaves little to be remembered here. Ferrari is a biopic that I would like to become brain portrait of a man and woman separated by mourning but still united thanks to their business idea. On the other hand, it’s hard to tell what Ferrari’s goals are, other than the frustration it causes for viewers who are long-time fans of the director, or those who expect a car-and-racing movie and don’t find much buzz. motors, a bit of dirt on the bumpers, very little emotion.
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Plot Ferrari
Like most modern biopics, Ferrari does not tell the whole life of its hero, commandant Enzo Ferrari, co-founder of the Prancing Horse, but only a very specific storyline. We are in 1957 in Modena.A Ferrari engineer is going through a period of black crisis.
His company is in desperate need of outside capital or it will have to file for bankruptcy. His wedding with co-founder Laura (Penelope Cruz), who owns half of the company, it has been ruined for a long time. A woman who is a master at understanding the accounts of the company and its financial problems, is more angry with her husband for the death of Dino’s son than for his countless love antics. He still doesn’t know it Elsewhere, Enzo has a new woman named Lina (Shailene Woodley) and a son who grows up healthy and strong, strong love.
Besieged by the press, who call him a killer due to the numerous deaths of his drivers, Ferrari built a car factory only to the opportunity to dedicate oneself to the passion for racing, but he doesn’t produce enough cars to sustain his obsession with winning. It is of little consolation that Maserati’s neighbors and competitors are having an even worse time.
Thus, the two jewels of the Italian automotive industry are fighting for survival: whoever wins the 1957 Millemilla will attract potential buyers. and perhaps be able to guarantee its survival.
What works and what doesn’t at Ferrari
It must be admitted that Ferrari choose a non-obvious narration option. At the end of the film, we realize that this is not so much a movie about building dream cars, but a story about divorce due to the loss of a childin which the two protagonists cling to their other son in order to survive: a company, a brand.
Shailene Woodley is the woman of Enzo’s life, but Penélope Cruz, so tense she seems crazy, is the woman of the film. Mann has to tell the protagonists on an equal footing in which both are champions of the brand’s reputation. Laura is a shark in terms of finances and legal sorcery. Despite her vindictiveness, she is capable of unexpected honesty and wit, which is reflected in Enzo’s decision to often speak to her with great frankness.
Unfortunately, there is also a bitter streak in this story. the usual exaggerated story about Italian emotionality. Get ready to see Adam Driver again as the Italian entrepreneur forcibly laying his fiery partner on the table as if there were no beds in Italy, in a scene little more than the downright embarrassing scene between Driver and Lady Gaga. at the Gucci House.
On the automotive front, the roar of engines is far away, the red color of the Ferrari has faded: this is not a movie that is only interested in racing. The decision to add a continuing sense of doom, an omen of tragedy to come, undermines the film’s already weakest point. The highly publicized scene from “the most brutal car crash in the history of cinema” is not only not particularly bloody and impressive, but also the sum of how visually this movie is fake, ugly.