Boccaccesca is a messy, weirdly charming 1920s time capsule

Should you actually sit through this?

If you like those old Italian movies where everyone wears velvet and looks slightly confused by the plot, then yes, give it a look. 🏰

But if you can’t stand silent films where the acting is way too loud even without sound, you will probably hate this one within ten minutes.

The Duke of Spoleto is the main guy here, and he is very stressed out. He’s worried about his daughter, Oretta.

Oretta is played by Tina Rinaldi, and she has these giant eyes that seem to follow you around. She needs an education, or at least that’s what the Duke thinks.

So he hires Jacopo. Jacopo is an administrator, but the movie also calls him an alchemist. I’m not sure why you’d hire an alchemist to teach your daughter, but it was 1928, so maybe that was normal? 🧪

Jacopo’s lab is the best part of the movie. It looks like a messy kitchen where someone forgot to do the dishes for a month.

There are jars everywhere. He’s constantly poking at things with a stick like he’s trying to find a lost remote under a couch.

The education part of the story gets forgotten pretty fast because everyone starts falling in love with the wrong person. It’s like a medieval version of a soap opera but with more hats.

The romantic tangles are so complicated I actually had to rewind a bit to figure out who was mad at who. It reminded me a little of the messy vibes in The Family Album, but with way more tights.

There is a specific moment where the Duke is reading a letter and his eyebrows do this twitching thing for about ten seconds straight. It is extremely distracting.

I think I saw a fly land on his shoulder during that scene. Nobody swatted it away.

The movie moves in these weird bursts. One scene will be very fast, and then we’ll spend five minutes watching a character walk slowly down a long stone hallway.

I wonder if they were just trying to show off how much they spent on the palace sets. They are nice sets, to be fair.

Elena Sangro shows up later, and you can tell she is a real star. She just walks into a room and everyone else suddenly looks like they don’t know what to do with their hands.

She has this energy that the rest of the cast is kind of lacking.

Some of the extras in the background look like they were just people they found on the street that morning. They keep looking at the camera like they’re waiting for someone to tell them to stop standing there.

It’s a lot more fun than Robinson's Trousseau, which I remember being a bit of a slog to get through.

There’s a scene where Oretta is wearing a dress with sleeves so big she looks like she’s about to fly away. I spent the whole scene wondering how she didn't knock over any of Jacopo's alchemy jars.

The romance feels a bit rushed toward the end. It’s like the director realized they were running out of film and just told everyone to get married and be happy.

It’s not as intense as something like The Conscience of John David. It stays pretty light, even when the alchemy stuff gets weird.

Speaking of alchemy, I was expecting some cool special effects, but it’s mostly just people looking at smoke. It’s very low-budget magic.

I did like the lighting in the night scenes. It’s very dark and moody, which hides the fact that some of the costumes look like they’re made of cheap felt.

If you’ve seen Taking a Chance, you know how these 1928 movies can either be great or just okay. This one is right in the middle.

It has a lot of heart, though. You can tell they really wanted to make something beautiful.

The Duke have a problem with his daughter, but honestly, he seems like the kind of guy who would find a problem with anything. He’s very grumpy.

I kept waiting for the alchemist to turn something into gold, but it never happened. Major disappointment there. 💰

The ending is a bit of a mess. It just kind of stops.

But that’s okay. It feels like a real person made it, with all the weird choices and slow parts included.

It’s definitely better than Fight Night, which had zero alchemy and way less velvet.

If you find a copy of this, watch it on a rainy afternoon. It’s a good 'nap' movie where you can drift in and out and still know exactly what’s happening. 😴

The costumes are the real reason to stay. They are so heavy and thick you can almost smell the dust on them through the screen.

It’s a weird little piece of history. Not a masterpiece, but a fun way to waste an hour if you like looking at old Italian palaces.