10) Torino – Soldati

Mario Soldati tackles Torino, and just when it was seeming like there were a limited number of ways of profiling a city cinematically, he opens things out with a narration that’s suddenly attached to an onscreen narrator — himself. This personal approach immediately adds warmth and personality. I note also that Soldati’s subject is the modern city. He’s almost as old as the century, but he’s not living in the past, though he’s certainly in a position to compare different eras.

Soldati, it’s fair to say, was more of a writer than a director — he did helm quite a lot of movies, but at this point hadn’t done so since 1959.

Soldati’s presence is the film’s greatest advantage — his filming and cutting are fairly conventional — and it’s a letdown when a younger VO artist takes over duties halfway through, for unknown reasons. Fatigue?

But then he’s back! Talking about breadsticks. He has the same impossible “old man voice” we’ve all heard dubbed onto elderly characters in Italian movies. A quavering croak, extremely adorable. He lived another twelve years! I wonder what he sounded like in 1999.

A decent entry, but since the beauties of Turin are so inaccessible, maybe it needed a younger man? Still, Soldati’s genial patrician presence is what makes it.