Casanova -2005 Film- Link

However, to criticize Casanova for lacking darkness is to critique a kitten for lacking fangs. The film is a confection. It is a valentine. It is a movie that explicitly says, "This is a lie, but it is a beautiful lie." In the years following Ledger’s tragic death in 2008, Casanova has taken on a bittersweet quality. We watch Ledger smile, laugh, and stumble through Venetian canals with a lightness he would never again display on screen. His subsequent roles ( Brokeback Mountain , I’m Not There , The Dark Knight ) were heavy, tortured, and brilliant. Casanova stands as his last pure comedy, his last wholly unburdened performance.

In an era of grimdark reboots and deconstructed heroes, Lasse Hallström’s Casanova offers a refreshing antidote: a film that believes in romance. It believes that a man can change, that a woman can be brilliant, that Venice is the most beautiful city in the world, and that love, complicated and messy as it is, conquers all. casanova -2005 film-

This is not a historically accurate Venice (the film plays fast and loose with geography and timelines), but it is the Venice of our collective imagination: a floating pleasure dome where rules are suspended and love is the only currency that matters. Hallström wisely leans into this artifice. The film knows it is a fairy tale, and it revels in its own unreality. Perhaps the most controversial—and brilliant—aspect of the film is its score by Academy Award-winning composer Alexandre Desplat ( The Grand Budapest Hotel , The Shape of Water ). Rather than composing a traditional baroque or classical score, Desplat introduces an anachronistic instrument: the Wurlitzer. However, to criticize Casanova for lacking darkness is

The central conflict arises when Francesca’s father forces her to marry Papprizzio (Oliver Platt), a wealthy but absurdly gluttonous Genoan. Desperate to win Francesca, Casanova adopts a disguise: he poses as the dull, scholarly "Signor Pomi," only to find himself competing for her affection against a genuine, virginal dullard—Bishop’s nephew Giovanni (Charlie Cox). Meanwhile, the brutish Pucci (Jeremy Irons, in a wonderfully restrained villainous turn) arrives as the Inquisitor, determined to finally burn Casanova at the stake. It is a movie that explicitly says, "This