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CHRISTMAS

Seven classic films to watch for an Italian Christmas

If you're just getting into the festive mood but can't face another viewing of Elf or Home Alone, here are some films to celebrate the Christmas holidays the Italian way.

Published: 18 December 2020 15:05 CET
Updated: 22 December 2023 12:56 CET
Watching TV
If you're struggling to get into the festive mood, a classic Christmas film may just do the trick. Photo by JESHOOTS on Unsplash

Vacanze di Natale (Christmas Holidays)

Let’s just get this out of the way, shall we: this 1983 farce is the original cinepanettone or ‘cinematic Christmas cake’, the name given to a particular genre of Italian Christmas comedy that’s every bit as sugary, festive and familiar as a loaf of panettone. 

They’re less Hallmark romcom, more Carry On film, with visual gags, double entendres and questionable attitudes aplenty. Good taste it ain’t, but they at least have the advantage of being easy to understand even if your Italian is limited.

Vacanze di Natale is the mother of all cinepanettone, a culture-clash comedy about rich Milanese colliding with a rough and ready Rome family over a ski break in the Alps.

Other classics of the genre – most of which star the same two comedians, Massimo Boldi and Christian De Sica – include Natale sul Nilo (Christmas on the Nile), Natale a New York (Christmas in New York), and Natale a Rio (Christmas in Rio). Yes, there’s a formula.

Natale in casa Cupiello (The Nativity Scene)

At the exact other end of the spectrum is this classic family drama by Neapolitan playwright Eduardo De Filippo, written in 1931, adapted for Italian TV in 1977 and now appearing in a new version this year on Rai 1.

‘Christmas in the Cupiello house’, as its original title translates, tells the story of the Cupiellos, two parents in Naples whose children’s desires threaten to pull the family apart. Things come to a head on Christmas Eve, as the father of the family attempts to demonstrate to his son the importance of the traditional presepe, or nativity scene. 

La Freccia Azzurra (The Blue Arrow)

This lovely 1996 animation, based on a fairy tale by Italian children’s author Gianni Rodari, was repackaged for American audiences as How The Toys Saved Christmas – but watch the original to find a story based around ‘Italy’s Santa’: La Befana, the witch who brings Italian children gifts the night before Epiphany (January 6th). 

La Befana (who was turned in the American version into a kindly grandma with a toyshop) falls ill the evening she is due to deliver her presents, allowing her dastardly assistant Scarafoni to step in. He secretly plans to sell off the toys – including the Blue Arrow of the title, a model train – to rich kids, but the toys have different ideas and conspire to deliver themselves to the children who deserve them most.

Set in a town based on Orbetello in Tuscany in the 1930s, it’s elegantly animated, beautifully scored and very, very charming.

Regalo di Natale (Christmas Present)

If you’re looking for something more substantial than a cinepanettone, this 1986 psychological drama is more main course than dessert.

Four old friends and one wealthy acquaintance meet for a game of poker on Christmas Eve. As the rounds unfold, we learn why each player is determined to win, and why their friendships have turned sour. 

It’s comic too, but with depth and an intriguing narrative that make it a compelling alternative to the usual festive fare. If you enjoy it, there’s a 2004 sequel: La rivincita di Natale, or Christmas Rematch. 

La Banda dei Babbi Natale (The Santa Claus Gang)

This good-natured comedy from 2010 stars comedians Aldo Baglio, Giovanni Storti and Giacomo Poretti, a well-known comic trio who have been making films together for more than 20 years.

Here they play three hapless pals from the same bocce (boules) team in Milan who end up in jail on Christmas Eve after being mistaken for a gang of burglars who, like them, are dressed in Santa suits. They find themselves recounting the various personal tribulations that have brought each of them there in order to convince the chief inspector (perennially likeable Angela Finocchiaro) that they’re innocent.

It has plenty of what Italian comedy does best: lots of silliness, self-deprecation, and a warm heart that never slides into total schmaltz. 

Parenti Serpenti (Dearest Relatives, Poisonous Relations)

Darker but possibly even funnier is Parenti Serpenti (literally ‘snake relatives’), a black comedy from 1992 that lays bare the cynical truth about many family Christmases: everyone’s terribly glad to see their relatives, so long as it’s only once a year.

The family in question have reunited at their parents’ home in Sulmona, Abruzzo, and the celebrations are going smoothly until the elderly mother announces over Christmas dinner that she and their increasingly senile father no longer want to live alone, and their four adult children must decide which one of them will take them in in exchange for a share of their pension and inheritance of the house. 

The children and their spouses end up competing among themselves to prove why they’re unsuitable to look after their ageing parents, airing long-hidden grievances and secrets in the process.

Don’t watch if you want your cockles warmed, do watch if you have a dark sense of humour – or if you want to be reminded why big family Christmases aren’t necessarily all they’re cracked up to be.

Trading Places (Una Poltrona Per Due)

Why is a Hollywood movie on this list – especially one that isn’t exactly considered a Christmas classic in English-speaking countries?

Because this 1983 identity swap comedy has wormed its way far deeper into Italian hearts than arguably anyone else’s. It became a fixture on primetime TV in Italy in the late ’90s, airing almost every Christmas Eve on Italia 1, and continues to attract millions of viewers each time, regularly beating more recent festive offerings.

Most people say it’s essentially because channel Italia 1 worked out it was cheaper to buy the rights for an older movie, and the viewing public are creatures of habit. But is there more to it?

I’d argue that Trading Places – or ‘One Armchair for Two’, as it’s known in Italy – is actually the perfect Italian Christmas film: a bit slapstick, very 1980s and deeply cynical (think A Christmas Carol but where Scrooge doesn’t abandon his money-grubbing ways, just teaches Bob Crachit to game the system too).

Our two heroes – a down-and-out hustler played by Eddie Murphy, who in a bizarre social experiment ends up stepping into the shoes of wealthy banker Dan Ackroyd – triumph by being that most Italian of qualities, furbo (‘crafty’ or ‘smart’). 

Parts of the film haven’t aged well (the N-word, blackface, jokes about sexual assault…), but if you can ignore those it remains a satisfying screwball comedy (as well as an excellent demonstration of how insider trading works, which you can’t say about too many Christmas movies). 

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CULTURE

Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli dies at 83

Roberto Cavalli, whose penchant for python and flamboyant animal prints made him the darling of the international jet set for decades, died Friday at 83, the luxury company said.

Published: 13 April 2024 09:21 CEST
Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli dies at 83

“It is with deep regret and a great sadness the Roberto Cavalli Maison participates in the passing of its founder Roberto Cavalli,” wrote the company in a statement sent to AFP.

“From humble beginnings in Florence Mr. Cavalli succeeded in becoming a globally recognised name loved and respected by all,” said the company.

First seen in the 1970s on stars such as Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, Cavalli’s skin-baring, eye-popping styles were still favoured years on by later generations of celebrities, from Kim Kardashian to Jennifer Lopez.

With a taste for Ferraris, thoroughbred horses, fat cigars and tailored shirts unbuttoned to expose his tanned chest, the designer’s private life also appeared the stuff of fantasy.

He married a Miss Universe runner-up, owned a purple helicopter and a Tuscan vineyard, and was on a first-name basis with A-listers like Sharon Stone and Cindy Crawford.

But the designer also weathered challenges, including a dry spell in the 1980s when minimalism took hold on runways and his form-fitting, feathered creations looked out of step.

A years-long trial in Italy on tax evasion charges ultimately ended in Cavalli’s acquittal, but after his eponymous fashion house began posting losses, a majority stake was sold to private equity in 2015.

Best known for his use of printed leather and stretchy, sand-blasted jeans, Cavalli always embraced the wow factor in his designs, never encountering an animal print he did not like.

The designer was tapped in 2005 to update the Playboy Bunnies’ scanty uniform — true to form, he introduced one version in leopard print.

Party crasher

Born on November 15, 1940 in Florence, Italy’s premier leatherworking centre, Cavalli began painting on T-shirts to earn money while at art school.

He recalled in his blog in 2012 how he gate-crashed a party in 1970, and, seeking to save face when he met the host, who was a designer, told him that he printed on leather.

When the designer asked to see some of his work the next day, Cavalli hurried to find samples of thin, supple leather onto which he printed a flower design.

The designer was impressed, and Cavalli was hooked.

Taking his inspiration from glove design, Cavalli began working with calfskin, patenting a new way to print leather with patterns that soon caught the eye of French luxury goods maker Hermes and the late designer Pierre Cardin.

In the 1970s, he opened a shop in Saint Tropez, playground of the world’s glitterati, and debuted his collection in Paris.

He went on to present for the first time in Italy at Florence’s opulent Palazzo Pitti, grabbing attention with his boho-chic patchwork designs on denim that married the unpretentious fabric with expert tailoring.

‘I’m copying God’

Of his ubiquitous use of prints, the animal lover — whose menagerie once included a monkey — told Vogue in 2011: “I like everything that is of nature.”

“I started to appreciate that even fish have a fantastic coloured ‘dress’, so does the snake, and the tiger. I start(ed) to understand that God is really the best designer, so I started to copy God,” he told the magazine.

In the 1980s Cavalli’s instantly recognisable, exotic designs were out of sync with the minimalist look that was all the rage, but the designer came back with a bang a decade later with distressed-looking jeans that proved a hit.

His fashion empire expanded to home furnishings, wine, shoes, jewellery and even a line of vodka, its bottle sheathed in snakeskin.

Taking his style to the high street, he designed a fast-fashion line for Swedish retail giant H&M and tour outfits for Beyonce, among others.

But the label began to suffer financial difficulties amid increased competition from well-funded brands owned by fashion conglomerates LVMH and Kering, and Cavalli stepped down as creative director in 2013.

Two years later, Milan-based private equity group Clessidra bought a 90-percent stake in the company, but a restructuring failed to reverse losses.

After filing for administration and closing its US stores, the fashion group was bought in November 2019 by Vision Investments, the private investment company of Dubai real-estate billionaire Hussain Sajwani.

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