The Icicle Thief (1989) poster
1989 · comedy · fantasy

The Icicle Thief

Directed by Maurizio Nichetti1h 30m1989
  • warm
  • brisk
  • surreal
  • funny

Director Maurizio Nichetti is invited on TV to introduce a screening of his neo-realist classic 'The Icicle Thief'. He is horrified to discover that his black-and-white tale of life in poverty is constantly interrupted by garish color commercials, and even more horrified when a power cut in the studio causes film and commercials to mix up – a glamorous model finds herself in the arms of an unemployed pauper, while his wife finds herself in consumers' heaven. Nichetti has to break into the film to try to sort everything out.

Our read · The Icicle Thief (1989) reads as a warm, breathless, surreal comedy · fantasy entry — gentle in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Cast
Maurizio NichettiCaterina Sylos LabiniFederico RizzoRenato ScarpaHeidi Komarek
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The shape of The Icicle Thief

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Nearest by DNA

Eight films that read most like this one.

Geometric closeness in the twelve-axis space — pure DNA distance, not “people also liked.” Distance numbers are listed under each title for sceners who like to know the maths.

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