Bellissimo :-)

Rating: 8/10 (20 February 2006)

First, excuse my baby-English.
I really need to talk about this film in order to stop thinking of it.
I'm Italian, never been in the USA and know American culture by films and TV shows reaching us here (almost 80% of cinema products however, I guess...) Heard some country music on the frequencies of the American air base at Aviano. No idea of who Johnny Cash and June Carter were, even if this may shock some readers here :-D So I had basically no idea of what to expect from this film, and rather the Italian title ("Quando l'amore brucia l'anima", when love burns your soul) made me think more of an operetta drama. Thinking of the distortion of translation, adaptation, and dubbing...
Instead! The script and photography are excellent. The first part is, at the same time, the strongest and the weakest, very slow but focusing on the dynamic of a dysfunctional family and the disturbing role not only of Cash's father, who destroyed his self-esteem, but also of the mother who apparently wasn't able to stop this torture. The relationship Johnny Cash had with his parents and wife is very credible and their reactions understandable. Vivian Cash is not the "evil, selfish, un-understanding wife" one could expect from this kind of films (Ginnifer Goodwin, gosh, is she so young?). The second part goes faster and means to solve the cruxes created in the first one. The film shows Johnny Cash basically needed love and respect, and luckily he found it in June-angel, for whom he was able to catch a second chance to become a better person.
I guess all the episodes have been fictionalized, but I'll retain in my mind the scene of the Thanksgiving lunch: Cash's hallucinated gaze at his father, Maybelle Carter urging her daughter to save him from his self-destruction drive, and above all, Ezra Carter chasing the pusher with a gun! Hilarious! And moving. I wonder if the "true story" is respected, but still I retained admiration for two exceptional people (the Carters) who went beyond puritan hypocrisy, represented by Ray Cash and other characters along the film, accepted their daughter could fall in love for the third time (in the 50's!) and clearly understood the pain John Cash had gone through.
Joaquin Phoenix impressed me a lot in "The Gladiator" and "To Die For" (Il gladiatore, Da morire). I am also a fan of the sweetest Reese Witherspoon. And they really didn't disappoint me. The way they act their falling in love with each other, hesitations and pain is touching. Really. I'm extremely curious to watch the original version. And finally to listen to original John Cash's music. As to the soundtrack: I can imagine Americans can share much more in watching this film, because of the collective history linked to every song, but anyway, I can add that while hearing Phoenix singing I actually had goose-flesh, especially for the very first song, "Cry cry cry". It was also such fun for me to discover Elvis Presley, Jarry Lee Curtis and John Cash all together and... doing drugs together in tour!
The very last scene, with the empty can serving as a telephone, is a nice link to Ray Cash's words at the beginning, "radio is nothing, music is nothing". It is just... communication.