Cast

Nicolas Connolly, Cristiana Capotondi, Douglas Dean, Sergio Solli, Renato De Maria, Antonino Iuorio, Nico Cirasola

Film description

A small American in Naples: a family trip takes an unexpected turn when 10-year-old Jack goes rogue, escaping his quarrelling parents between stalls filled with traditional Italian figurines. Sent to bed as punishment, the boy dreams a parade of strange characters, where the grotesque Pulcinella leads him through the underground passageways, a ballroom, hospital, and workshop of broken toys that Freud would ogle with an understanding grin. In a nod to Italian cinema buffs, Gilliam takes the audience on a ride through his favourite motifs, complete with dreams invading reality, living dolls, masks, severed heads, theatrical scenes, claustrophobic spaces, and lofty of religious monuments contrasting with the smell of death filling the streets of Naples. The film is shot in Mediterranean hues, with typically Gilliamesque painstaking attention to detail and topsy-turvy logic.