princebansal1982 Pane e tulipani is an enjoyable romantic movie. It is about a housewife who is on a trip with her family. When her family mistakenly leaves her at rest stop during the trip, she decides to maker her own way home rather than wait for her overbearing husband. As her husband gets more angry, she decides to have a little vacation away from her overbearing husband and apathetic children. This is her journey.The premise is very good and the characters were wonderful. But in the end I couldn't help thinking that the movie could have been much better. Don't get me wrong. The movie doesn't have any obvious flaws. Acting is good. Plot and characters while being a little quirky are still very believable, but I still felt something missing.

Danusha_Goska Save Send Delete Licia Maglietta and Bruno Ganz are so wonderful in this movie that I wish it had been a better film, because I would love to watch their performances over and over, but I won't be doing so, because, besides Maglietta and Ganz, the movie is only lukewarm."Bread and Tulips" is a lighthearted romantic comedy about a middle-aged woman who accidentally walks out on her family and starts a new life in Venice. Rosalba's (Maglietta)'s husband, Mimmo, dispatches a private detective, actually a plumber who came to him for work, to bring her back home. Comedic and romantic complications ensue.The revelation here is Licia Maglietta. She is simply one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in a movie. She's not just beautiful, she is entrancing. I'd put her appeal in the same class with Garbo. There is a scene where she wrenches a tune out of an accordion (it's actually her playing the accordion) and the look of pleasure on her face has more life and sex appeal than most actresses can achieve in the most rigorous of love scenes.Bruno Ganz, who has convincingly played both an angel ("Wings of Desire") and Hitler ("Downfall") is as wonderful as ever as an older waiter.Ganz and Maglietta make very beautiful music together, but, otherwise, the film is underwritten and lightweight. Rosalba says virtually nothing of substance in the entire film. Venice, a picturesque city, is photographed with so little imagination that the movie may as well have taken place in a K-Mart parking lot.There are some nice gags involving a tulip and an antique gun, but, really, I wish this exact same cast could be brought together for a more ambitious, more fully realized film.

gkeith_1 The husband was an idiotic jerk who did not appreciate what a wonderful wife he had. Looks like Rosalba needed to get away a long time earlier than she did. Fernando treated her like a human being. I was so afraid Rosalba would get raped or killed when she was living by herself in those scary looking places. She was indeed very lucky. I am taking an Italian language course at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, and we were able to see this film tonight (2-15-2006) for extra credit in the course. The English subtitles were great to have. Rosalba had a lot of nerve to stay away from her screaming-and-yelling husband, however all he did was blame her for everything. He was so selfish and self-centered, and I am glad Rosalba had the courage to make the break LOL.

noralee "Bread and Tulips (Pane e tulipani)" is a delightful movie for grown-ups.Even though I missed the first minute of the opening due to subway delays, as I stumbled through a packed theater of hard-of-hearing senior citizens who go to foreign movies to read the subtitles and re-tell the plot turns loudly to each other) I could sure relate to it: middle-aged mom on vacation with Grouchy Dad and sarcastic teen boys, having to carry around all the emergency supplies and tourist tchotchkas, getting ignored by one and all.From there it turns into a wonderful screwball laugh out loud comedy of quirky characters and unexpected life stories, some revealed suddenly, some unpeeled slowly, as chance encounters lead to surprising changes, though I couldn't move to clear my view so big heads made me miss key parts of some complicated explanations.While the Earth Mother is captivating, the unfair flaw is the unsympathetic husband to justify the fantasy ending, though I think his character may reflect some conventions of Italian comedy that don't quite translate well here.At the long line in the ladies room afterwards, a fluent Italian speaker praised the subtitle translations and pointed out that the family's hometown is very much not a tourist destination, so is rarely seen in films, contrasted nicely with the scenes in Venice.(originally written 7/28/2001)