AllMovie

Giuseppe Piccioni's quietly powerful work looks like it was filmed underwater. Bathed in an icy blue light, Luce is complemented by a dreamy ambient soundtrack lifted straight out of late '70s-era Brian Eno albums. Essentially a story is about an innocent dreamer trying to change a brutally pragmatic world, the film's basic premise would seem clichéd (or even naïve) if it were not in the hands of such a skilled director. Using an odd mix of clinical detachment and transcendent humanism, Piccioni exposes successive layers of Antonio's and Maria's character with the precision of a surgeon. Luigi Lo Cascio as Antonio and Sandra Ceccarelli as Maria, in particular, match Piccioni's deft touch by giving nuanced performances as these two very different characters slowly become a couple and a family. Little wonder then that both Cascio and Ceccarelli walked away with acting awards at the 2001 Venice Film Festival.