It wasn't supposed to be a comedy!

...About as subtle as an elephant

The Italian director of the film Bianco e Nero (Black and White) managed to do things I never thought possible. Here is the movie:

- There is a man, a computer technician, married to a stunning Italian woman. This is wrong, or at least unfair, to begin with.
- The wife of said man looks about 3 years younger than her mother and about 3 years older than their daughter. Ok, so this is fairly common in Italy.
- The wife spends much of her time at an African aid organisation, along with a Senagalese man
- The Italian man doesn't care too much for the charity events which her wife helps organise.
- The wife of the Senegalese man (a stunning African woman) finds the whole thing a little pretentious, and expresses this to the Italian man, establishing a relationship between these two characters.

At this point, the film diverts from its true goal (which by the end we know is clearly to show some gratuitous sex scenes) to 'explore' some racial issues. The African couple are invited to the Italians' daughters birthday. There proceeds a laughable amount of not-so-subtle symbolism. The Italian family have an African maid who wears a white apron, for example. The guests give their glasses and dirty plates to the African wife, also a guest. The Italian man's father offers to pay her for sex.

But never fear, because the film reverts back to its intended course - the beautiful African woman takes her computer to the Italian man to get it fixed, he delivers it back to her house, and all of a sudden, while the African man is in Brussels, an affair has started. Ah, Italian cinema!

Getting less and less subtle as time goes by, we see a black hand on a white hand, a white leg on a black leg.

But alas, some troubles begin. Beautiful Italian wife becomes very angry when she finds out and makes him leave. African husband can no longer talk to his wife and makes her leave.

Then the Italian man tries to explain himself with possibly the worst line in cinematic history: "You don't understand, not everything is blackand wh... . uh I mean life is all shades of grey". No kidding. He said that.

Both having failed to convince their partners to have them back, they continue having sex. Why not? Nothing to lose! We get another great one-liner here, from the Italian man to the African woman - "I was always a black sheep... I mean, we say black sheep because our sheep are white". What?

After some time, they both decide to try again with their partners, no jealousy of course. Oh yeah, this is after they have declared they can't live with out each other (only a minor detail I suppose). This time, they are taken back with open arms. Forgiven. That said, in the meantime the Italian woman decided that she might 'have a go' at being with the African man too.... no, no, it's true!

Both sets of partners are reunited.

Just when everything is looking happy for both families, the black and the white (does anyone see where the name of the film came from yet?), Italian man meets African woman in the park. Within, oh about 17 seconds, they are making out again, in front of their children. The children run off and play together happily (how sweet).

I'm not really sure what the moral of the story was. That if you have an affair, you may as well continue with it until your partner forgives you? That if you are a geeky and not-so-handsome Italian man, whose every sentence is a racial faux-pas, you can switch freely between two beautiful women?

Maybe films concerning racial 'issues' have to be like this in Italy, to get their message across. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if this film caused considerable anger if it were shown in the 'States. But in Italy, there is a xenophobia, a mistrust and misunderstanding of foreigners so great, it seems they can get away with this!