Ida Zeee: SFIFF Day 2, Ticket 1

Mister Universo

Program description: Each night, underneath a threadbare big top, Tairo puts an aging pride of big cats through their paces. Audiences may be dwindling, but the young lion tamer is happy, living a life that he’s dreamed of since he was a little boy. When some trailer park neighbors steal a cherished lucky charm, Tairo, uneasy without it, sets off down the back roads of Italy to find the strongman who bequeathed it to him many years ago. For this captivating docudrama, filmmaking duo Tizzi Covi and Rainer Frimmel not only mine their own cinematic past—viewers first met young Tairo in their 2010 Festival film La Pivellina—but that of Italy as well. The spirit of early Fellini can be felt in Mister Universo, alongside that of prime De Sica, as the workaday world of the circus, gently refracted though the lens of the filmmakers, reveals a sense of wonder that may fade, but will never be extinguished. –Doug Jones

I was looking forward to this film because I have a degree in Italian and I miss hearing the language and Italian films. Perhaps it was a match of my mood and the material but i fell asleep. I should have liked this because it was a semi-reality film but there wasn't enough editing. There were so many scenes where Tairo drives from one location to another. I saw a review from Variety (AUGUST 20, 2016) which said it was a road film "a droll, detour-ridden road movie...It’s an adventure unapologetically low on incident and urgency..." The statement that follows is "The pleasures here are to be found in the social, cultural and shifting generational peculiarities." This is what I wish I had stayed awake for.