Manuale or Automatico?

Manuale d'Amore is a charming, silly Italian film directed by Giovanni Veronesi which was chosen to open the short Italian Film Festival currently running in Sydney. Using the old formula so common in Italian movies of the sixties it is a series of interlinked stories about aspects of love. Think Love Actually for a recent UK example. It's fun because it's so beautifully acted and the settings are such a delight, but the stories are rather cartoonish and trite. Commercial fare rather than festival fare then, and slightly disappointing in that regard.