The premise is an engagement banquet put on by the family of the bride-to-be for the sake of the considerably smaller family of the groom-to-be. There are wide social as well as geographical differences between the two families. And the setting -- Italy, 1936 -- musters up a supplementary shadow. The cast is large; the focus of interest roams around it democratically; and an entire daytime soap opera's worth of personal dramas are hauled out into the open. Inhibitions, or better say subtleties, are few. The treatment is unrelentingly brisk, broad, superficial, with little or no concern for credibility. (The chiaroscuro photography seeks credibility of a very different sort: that of association with the Old Masters.) The meal proper, twenty courses in all, commences around halfway through, and it has stimulated some commentators to bring up "Batette's Feast". Well, sure. It's a foreign film. There's a meal in it, albeit one as brisk, broad, and superficial as everything else in the movie. And what of it? Written and directed by Pupi Avati. (1991) — Duncan Shepherd
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