Il Postino (The Postman)

Seen as one of the classics of European cinema, this charming film nicely skates between mild pleasures and underlying thoughtfulness.
The Italian sealine is beautiful, the evocation of the island only falls into tweeness when it knows it is doing so. We grow to love the central character, but that does ont innure us from his frequent stupidities. Mario (The Postman) and Pablo Neruda, really form the heart of this film, with the other characters sketched around them. That is fine.
The humour is fun, there is no sense of deep gut-wrenching emotional moves until the last third. This is done intelligently; the situation Neruda finds himself in is a wildly dramatic one, while at the same time his life and the concerns of Mario ARE incredibly placid and light. The film is intellgient in the way it flips us into the serious questions of communism and loss as the film reaches its conclusions, without ever being too jarring.
Again, the acting is excellent, Neruda in particular being a fascinating figure. It leaves us open the most important questions, of art and politics. Rightfully a favourite.