With
Quiet Chaos (
Caos Calmo), acclaimed Italian helmer
Nanni Moretti
steps away from his standard directorial role to essay the lead and
co-author the script in a gentle psychological drama directed by
Antonello Grimaldi.
Moretti
stars as Pietro, a film executive whose life takes an irreversible and
devastating turn one fateful morning. During a trip to the beach with
his brother, Pietro's path intersects with that of a woman, Eleonora (
Isabella Ferrari),
who is drowning in the ocean; horrified, Pietro rushes in to save her.
He subsequently returns home only to discover that his wife, Lara, just
died in a nasty falling accident; devastated to the core, this nascent
widower must make the necessary psychological accommodations to adjust
to life as a single parent, with sole responsibility for raising his
ten-year-old daughter, Claudia (
Blu Yoshimi).
Almost instinctively, as a reaction to Lara's death, Pietro opts to sit
and wait for his daughter to finish school each day (in a park across
from the school), in lieu of abandoning her to his own priorities and
commitments. This means that the fellow's colleagues in the film
industry must, by necessity, come to do business with him in the park.
Through it all, Pietro remains silently dumbfounded that the tragedy
itself hasn't shaken him more, that the grief (the "quiet chaos" of the
title) is subtly agonizing instead of grossly traumatizing and
debilitating.
