Sometimes, imitation isn’t flattery - it’s just insulting

Great filmmakers invite impersonation. And if you didn’t know any better, you might confuse Italian director Pupi Avati’s new film — “Il cuore grande delle ragazze” (literally, “The Big Heart of the Girls”) — with, say, Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord.” That is, you might if, 1, you had no knowledge of Fellini or his films; or, 2, you had no sense of what makes a decent — never mind great or even good — film.

Avati, who wrote and directed “Il cuore,” has been making films since 1970. His resume includes some 52 screenplays written and 44 films directed. The edition of the Rome International Film Festival that is going on right now saw the film’s premiere on Tuesday, though we didn’t see it until last night (it opens wide in Italy on Nov. 11).

“Il cuore” captures much of what “Amarcord” did: It tells a family story, set during the Mussolini era and seen through the eyes of a boy (now an old man doing the narration). Most of the characters, from the wounded war veteran and his former-prostitute girlfriend to the older brother whose sweet, hawthorn-scented breath thrills the women, are quirkly and offbeat. The story drifts from one subplot to the next and each twist is accompanied by an upbeat musical score.

Ah, but there the similarities end. Because Fellini, at his best, had a sense of story. He could create a story arc out of what seemed like a heaping plate of spaghetti and find resolutions to a variety of plot points. Avati, by contrast, follows a story from A to Z without giving any thought whatsoever to meaning, dramatic consequences or even coherence. His film is a perfect example of one director’s aping the style of another without understanding, in the slightest, what made the original filmmaker special.

So the audience at last night’s screening laughed. And some of those in attendance might even have enjoyed themselves. But if they had a feel for Italian cinema, or cinema at all in contract to those films that pass for mere entertainment, they knew the limitations of what they were watching. I don’t even call myself a student of Italian film and I can see the difference between the real thing and outright posery.

Below : The tralier for “il cuore grande delle ragazze.”