Il cosmo sul comò (2008)

The story is divided into four episodes, framed by the story of Master Tsu'Nam, a self-proclaimed blind Eastern master, always accompanied by his devoted disciples, Pin and Puk. The master is in the habit of meditating and constantly dispensing “pearls of wisdom” in the shade of a Ginkgo biloba tree. Whenever he does so, he strikes a powerful gong, the Sacred Gong of Wisdom, which causes catastrophes each time—avalanches or volcanic eruptions. It is August 3 in an empty Milan. Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo are due to leave on vacation with their respective families. Aldo, a rather hasty and superficial family man, gets the wrong car, breaking into one identical to his own that is parked nearby by mistake, and is forced to put up with his wife’s extravagant spending and his shrewish mother-in-law. Giovanni, an extremely fussy perfectionist, makes his family wait cooped up at home for three days so they can leave without getting caught in the holiday exodus, insists they follow his strict procedures, and makes them set off on vacation at 5:30 in the morning. Giacomo, meanwhile, tries unsuccessfully to persuade his wife and daughter to join him on vacation at the planned destination. Giovanni arrives first outside Giacomo’s house and makes his family wait in the car. A little later Aldo arrives and, distracted while driving by an argument about the financial problems already mentioned, slams on the brakes behind Giovanni’s car. A suitcase falls off Aldo’s roof rack and lands on one of Giovanni’s rear lights, breaking it. While the three men argue about how to pay for the damage, Giacomo’s wife appears at the window and, in protest, throws the suitcases down and shouts, referring to the trip’s destination, “That place is fucking awful, got it?!” Everyone shares her opinion except the three husbands, setting off a general revolt. In the end, after an extremely untimely aperitif, the group decides not to go to the seaside and spends the vacation camping out on the pitch inside the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium. In a small country parish, where the church is falling apart, Father Bruno and the sacristan Mario are dealing with various financial problems. These are partly caused by Mario, who also has the bad habit of eavesdropping on confessions: after each Mass, while counting the parishioners’ meager offerings, he secretly steals most of them in an attempt to fulfill his dream of buying a motorbike. Their friend Beniamino is a young man in love with the sales assistant at a pet-supply shop. He goes there every day just to see her and buys a bag of dog biscuits—which at first he keeps, but later starts offering to a stray dog he meets every day—and a goldfish, which he puts in the church’s holy-water font, which by now contains dozens of fish. He never manages to tell the girl how he feels, not even by giving her a letter, because of his shyness. One day, Beniamino accidentally comes into possession of a suitcase full of €500 banknotes, thrown by a thief during a chase, and confesses this to Father Bruno in the sacristan’s presence. The three try to hide the money in a bag—with Mario, naturally, trying to take some for himself—but the dog steals it and leaves it in the street, where a refuse collector picks it up and throws it into the garbage truck’s compactor. In the end, Father Bruno, having convinced himself not to return the stolen money, manages to use what remains to have the church renovated, while Mario runs off with the money he stole and buys himself the motorbike. Beniamino slips his love letter into the collection box at the shop for abandoned animals, apparently finally managing to declare his feelings. This episode is inspired by the Harry Potter series. In a room in a castle, several famous paintings come to life and talk among themselves when no humans are around. At one point Aldo wants to visit the portrait of Marie Antoinette, and manages to detach himself from the wall and move along, balancing on the canvas. Giovanni also tries to reach the Lady with an Ermine in the same way, but halfway there he loses his balance and his canvas falls; he nevertheless reaches his destination by sliding across the floor. Giacomo, meanwhile, finds himself being approached, much to his dismay, by the portrait of an effeminate and probably homosexual marquis, who is also balancing as he moves. Note: as soon as Aldo ends up on the floor, a portrait of Jean Claude can be seen high up. Played by the director Marcello Cesena himself, Jean Claude was already famous for the Sensualità a corte sketches, and exclaims, “Oh, mother!”—the typical line Jean Claude says in the sketches. After Aldo’s three children and Giovanni’s two children are born, Giacomo and his wife, who have been married for years, also desperately want to have a child. Unfortunately, he is nearly infertile, producing very weak sperm. The couple are told that, to conceive, they need to have intercourse when her basal body temperature reaches the suitable reading of 38 degrees, which always happens when Giacomo is in the least suitable situations—for example, in the shower or at the dentist. This leads the couple to consult two female doctors and an Indian luminary who practices Ayurvedic medicine, in an attempt to achieve fertilization. All three turn out to be rather incompetent, and their treatments only cause Giacomo further frustration. In the end, when he has almost given up, he happens upon two newborn babies abandoned in a garbage bin and decides to adopt them, taking them home.