Fine Line Features | For Roseanna

Sitting in the park...

A circus tightrope walker delicately promenades in the open air, on a rope strung high above a cemetery. He tosses rose petals on the coffins far below where his colleagues are being laid to rest in the tiny Italian village of Travento. Standing among the surreal-looking mourners is Marcello Beatto (Jean Reno), who is grief-stricken to see these precious burial plots in the crowded cemetery being filled.

Marcello returns to the village where Father Bramilla (Giuseppe Cederna) informs him that the wealthy local landowner Capestro (Luigi Diberti) has again refused to sell his land adjoining the cemetery. That means that only three plots remain, and space cannot be reserved. But Marcello's beloved wife Roseanna is terminally ill, and it is her wish to be buried in the cemetery beside their daughter, who died many years ago.

So Marcello works out a plan to give death a holiday. He will engineer to keep the dying safely alive and protect the living from taking up permanent residence in the ancient churchyard. He sets himself a heroic, and ever-multiplying number of tasks: visiting the sick, donating blood, directing traffic, stubbing out patrons' cigarettes in his trattoria. While Marcello is thus occupied, the actual running of the trattoria falls on the none-too-pleased shoulders of Cecilia (Polly Walker), Roseanna's younger sister who has left Rome to live in Travento and help care for her dying sibling.

Although Roseanna has certain regrets (like never having been to New York), her primary worry is for the happiness of her husband and sister when she is gone. She proposes that Marcello and Cecilia eventually marry so that they will both be "taken care of." But Cecilia soon has a new, far more enthusiastic suitor: Antonio (Mark Frankel), a young lawyer who has adored Cecilia since their schooldays, and who happens to be Capestro's nephew. Marcello has visited Capestro himself to urge him to sell his land to the church, a request that was hotly refused. Perhaps Cecilia can convince Antonio to help persuade his uncle.

Marcello serves a special dinner to Cecilia and Antonio at the trattoria while the two get reacquainted. But Marcello's over-eagerness to confirm Antonio's support on the land issue brings the evening to an unsatisfactory close.

One of Marcello's close friends, the mousy banker Rossi (Roberto Della Casa) shows up at the trattoria very drunk after receiving a phone call from Iaccoponi (Trevor Peacock), a kidnapper who has just been released from prison. Fearing for his drunken friend's safety, Marcello offers to drive Rossi home. During the ride, Rossi confesses that when Iaccoponi went to jail, 20 years ago, he asked Rossi to take care of a large amount of money. Rossi, to all appearances a modest widower, admits to Marcello that he has led a double life: he has spent most of Iaccoponi's money, largely on his voluptuous, acquisitive mistress, Francesca (Fay Ripley). But now Iaccoponi is out of jail, and ready to reclaim the fortune that no longer exists. Marcello agrees with Rossi that he ought to leave town, upon which Rossi flings himself from the car.

Rossi, who knows he is not long for this world, begs Marcello to bury him next to his dishonored wife in the cemetery. Marcello reluctantly agrees, on the condition that Rossi tell him where the remainder of Iaccoponi's money is hidden. Unfortunately, Rossi dies before he can reveal the money's exact location. Marcello stashes Rossi's corpse in a deep freezer and begins a frantic search. His need to find the money becomes all the more urgent when an elderly emphysema victim finally dies, leaving just two plots in the cemetery. He must have enough money to persuade Capestro to sell.

Marcello returns to Rossi's house, and finds the money just as Iaccoponi arrives. Iaccoponi flies into a towering rage when he realizes how much of his money is missing, and swears vengeance on Rossi. Marcello tells him that Rossi is already dead. Iaccoponi, devastated at having spent his life in jail with nothing to show for it, crazed with anger, shoots himself so he can chase Rossi down in Hell, leaving the overburdened Marcello with yet another corpse to keep out of the cemetery. But before he can dispose of Iaccoponi's body, Rossi's erstwhile mistress Francesca pays a visit, determined to get a few more things out of Rossi.

Roseanna discovers the reasons behind Marcello's decidedly erratic behavior and decides to visit Capestro herself and offer him the money for the land. But money is not the reason Capestro refuses to sell. He has never forgiven Roseanna for rejecting him years before to marry Marcello. He will only sell the land if Roseanna admits to him that she made a terrible mistake in choosing Marcello. But there is no plot of earth dear enough to make Roseanna repudiate all those years with the man she loves. Their life together is what matters, what continues to matter.

And working together, as they have throughout their marriage, Marcello and Roseanna may yet figure out a way to make her last wishes come true ...