{"id":503,"date":"2011-05-16T12:56:13","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T17:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=503"},"modified":"2011-05-16T12:56:13","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T17:56:13","slug":"davids-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/davids-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"David’s Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

David’s Birthday \/ Il Compleano.<\/em> Dir. Marco Filiberti. 2009. Wolfe Video, 2010. 106 min. $19.95.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"David\u2019s Birthday,<\/em> the Wolfe release of the 2009 Italian film, Il Compleano,<\/em> is a beautifully shot and a generally well-acted, though soapy drama. Two couples who have known each other for many years rent a beach house together for their summer vacation. We first see them together at the opera, Tristan and Isolde,<\/em> whose love, of course, ends tragically.<\/p>\n

Diego and Shery\u2019s son, David, has been in New York attending college and cultivating a budding modeling career. Their friends, Matteo (a psychoanalyst) and Francesca, send their young daughter to visit her cousins, and assorted friends and relatives begin arriving at the beach house. David\u2019s eventual arrival exposes tensions between each couple and within their shared friendship. Moreover, David\u2019s beauty attracts all the neighborhood young women [when quizzed, David claims that they are kissing him, he is not kissing them], as well as the attention of Matteo.<\/p>\n

The tragedy of Tristan and Isolde’s love at the film\u2019s begninning is mirrored in the ending of this film, as the plans for David’s birthday party dissolve into disaster. Are David and Matteo gay or bisexual or something else? It doesn’t really matter. Ultimately, what we have here is a variation on the old story that being either must end badly. So in some ways, the story devolves into a throwback. But the cinematography and scenery are beautiful and the acting is good-to-excellent all the way around.<\/p>\n

David’s Birthday<\/em> would be a good addition to most library adult foreign film collections.<\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Reviewed by, Dave Combe<\/strong>
\nE. P. Foster Library
\nVentura, CA<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David’s Birthday \/ Il Compleano. Dir. Marco Filiberti. 2009. Wolfe Video, 2010. 106 min. $19.95. David\u2019s Birthday, the Wolfe release of the 2009 Italian film, Il Compleano, is a beautifully shot and a generally well-acted, though soapy drama. Two couples who have known each other for many years rent a beach house together for their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,34,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}