Casanova's Return * * ½

I saw this at the Italian Film Festival which is currently on. Generally I don't bother too much with Film Festivals because they are over priced, over crowded and half the stuff they show doesn't live up to the big rap they give it.  Here's another example.

Toni not happy with this review

Starring the excellent Toni Servillo  I thought it was just too clever for it's own good. It's about a director who is ageing who is making a film on the ageing Casanova. So we've got a film within a film. Just as Casanova was losing his libido and his mojo, so is the director losing his commitment to his project, driving his producer and editor up the wall - especially as they have a Venice Film Festival deadline.

We see them making the film, the director planning another film and then the film they have just made being edited.  Each scene from one film compliments and reflects the other from meeting young girls to being picked up in a car to bad behaviour.  There are some interesting scenes not least being the director and Casanova struggling with their ageing and feeling almost a sense of shame about it.  But overall I found the experience self indulgent, smug and uninvolving.