REVIEW: The Sweet Hand of the White Rose [2010]

“I’m happy when I play alone” Dealing with the tragic nature of death and the myriad split-second decisions we make to set us on our inevitable courses towards mortality, Davide Melini‘s The Sweet Hand of the White Rose becomes both a cautionary tale and memorial to those lost. Shown as a diptych of two parallel existences fatefully intertwined as perpetrator and victim, the subject matter is obviously a personal one with the writer/director. Mark’s (Carlos Bahos) late-twenties bar patron drinking away his sorrows and White Rose’s (Natasha Machuca) youthful child…

Read More

REVIEW: The Puzzle [2008]

“You always spend my money on stupid things” If you hadn’t read a synopsis of Davide Melini‘s short film The Puzzle, you may be confused as to what is happening onscreen. I myself was in the dark until the end credits explained the relationship between the two characters I had just watched come together. But even then the subject matter’s purpose remains slightly out of reach. Opening on an older woman played by Cachito Noguera walking towards her bedroom, we become disoriented once she angrily ends a phone conversation dealing…

Read More