Marina

Background: Had never heard of Rocco Granata. Chanced on this film on TV one evening. Started watching it because of the beautiful photography, and excellent acting. Watched it to the end.

On to the critic "Marina" recounts the early life of Italian-Belgian singer Rocco Granata (born 1938, first big success in 1959), until he starts becoming famous. One could be worried about the clichés of poor family from Calabria moving to Netherlands, father working as a miner but son wanted to only play music and sing, local population is racist and to make matters worse the immigrant starts liking a local girl, and so on - but no, this is done really well, with lots of subtlety! And the acting is just so good! None of the actors is famous, I guess the most famous (or least unknown) is the Dutch girlfriend (Evelien Bosmans), who has had several roles on local TV.

Did I mention that the photography was very beautiful, but without overdoing it either?

Well worth watching. Possibly even re-watching.