original title:
La lingua del santo
directed by:
cast:
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
set design:
costume design:
music:
producer:
production:
distribution:
country:
Italy
year:
2000
film run:
110'
format:
colour
release date:
15/09/2000
festivals & awards:
Padua is a city with an annual turnover equal to the whole of Portugal but it is also a city that does not expect too much - just a rugby field. It has a patron saint, Anthony who is famous in all the world and a florid economy based of a large number of little factories, Carlo Mazzacurati is Padua born and bred and so are his writers, Franco Bernini and Umberto Contarello. Together they had the idea of making a film about a couple of losers who decide to steal the city's most important religious relic: Saint Anthony's tongue. That, in essence is the story of La lingua del santo. The plot comes and goes but the director of Un'altra vita has succeeded in his intent to create two fantastic losers who will go down in the history of Italian cinema. They are played by Fabrizio Bentivoglio (whose nickname is Delon, for obvious reasons) an ex-salesman whose life goes to pieces when his wife, Patrizia (played by Isabella Ferrari) leaves him for a surgeon (Ivano Marescotti). Antonio (played by Antonio Albanese) is a small-time thief who will do anything for money including being kicked in the backside for 100,000 Lire! Marco Paolini plays the Saint who torments Antonio's nightmares and who tries to talk without a tongue.