Is his a life of bourgeois complacency? Or is it middle-class contentment? Whatever the case, the portrait of familial intimacy portrayed in Nanni Moretti's masterful, sorrowful "The Son's Room" is achingly tender. But, as a friend said to me right afterward, "I knew something awful, terrible, had to happen."

Such is drama, and such is life. Moretti, 47, struggles to define how we cope with loss after tragedy. Giovanni makes a choice that is a correct one professionally, but wrong for his family, and in his absence, his son dies in a senseless diving accident. Everything changes. Moretti works with the simplest of means, and his formal elegance as a director and his acute compassion as a writer inform every scene: performance, décors, behavioral details, sorrow, hope. All there. Several moments in "The Son's Room" are exquisite instances of cinematic perfection. He uses Brian Eno's song, "By The River," in several scenes, which makes me misty just to recall. There is also a moment where Giovanni is listening to a CD of the lush, lovely, syncopated aggro of Michael Nyman's music—a piece called "Water Dances." We hear a few bars. Giovanni stabs the remote, listens to the same five seconds again. Again. And now a flash: He remembers jogging with his son, trading winded smiles, on the sunny Sunday morning that can never be repeated. Giovanni rewinds time, memory. The means, utterly contemporary; the act sensual, confounding our expectations, our senses, alive like the greatest moments in movies. I looked toward my friend, her eyes damp, her jaw open, too. I was thrilled: what a small, dumb, glistening, even majestic instant.

Moretti had a bout with cancer several years ago, and he says that no one close to him has died in a similar fashion. But he says this is the time to make such a movie. "A film with such a theme would never have occurred to me twenty years ago," the director, sometimes described as the Italian Woody Allen, says. "As time goes by, one thinks more and more often about these themes: grief, death. Whether one has experienced them or the fear that something may happen to someone dear to us. Many people were surprised by this movie and they thought it was a big departure from my past movies. This movie still contains the old movies of mine that are now filtered through my sensibility of today. But my perspective has changed because I have changed."

And then there's the line between emotion and sentimentality, of how much emotion, how much pain to capture on screen. "My objective was exactly not to exploit these characters and their feelings," he says emphatically. "I think I was able to achieve this by the style, a certain overarching tone. It's not that I had to resist treating these events melodramatically, it's just my nature not to treat events in such a way. I didn't want to force emotions over the viewers. I didn't want to impose these emotions through certain music, certain kinds of dialogue. In other words, I didn't want to use easy stylistic solutions. I wanted to share with the viewer emotion."

While there are gently observed, delicate moments through the film, Moretti says there was never a question of more comedy. "No, no, no. From the very start, the film was divided into two major parts like the life of the characters is divided. In the first part of the movie, there are some situations that can remind one of my previous movies. But then when this terrible tragedy strikes, then things change for the characters and things change also for the film director who has to adequately accommodate these new events."

One of the most chilling scenes shows the sealing of the son's coffin. Moretti's shot selection is as cold and blunt as anything in Bresson, and the sound of the screws drilling into the lid can make your teeth ache. "The whole scene is a memory I've drawn upon, a real experience. Not that I lost a son, but I lost someone dear to me. I witnessed this moment one day. It's a very important scene. I am not a believer, and neither are Giovanni or his wife. I don't believe in life after death, therefore the importance of this moment."

This, and other images in Moretti's elegant masterpiece, bring to mind the pronouncement of the poet William Carlos Williams: "No ideas but in things." Moretti agrees that his images were more concrete than usual. "I wanted to shoot this scene in a very crude and raw, realistic way. I usually don't dwell on details, but in this scene, yes. The moment is a crucial moment, it defines the film because they are letting go."

"The Son's Room" opens March 1.

Also by Ray Pride

SCOLD WAR
"Hart's War" is many things, none of them memorable or really even very good. First and foremost, I suppose, is that it's a World War II picture about integrity entering the marketplace after September 11. Or perhaps, in monetary terms for perennial underdog studio MGM, is that it's a Bruce Willis is-he-a-good-guy, is-he-a-bad-guy hard-ass action story that cuts together nicely as a thirty-second television spot.
(2002-02-14)

AUTUMNAL CRAFT
The only viewers who might be offended by "Collateral Damage" are those who are offended by mediocrity. Arnold treks to the jungles of Colombia, goes through a series of incredible coincidences, evades an incredible series of munitions lobbed toward his huge head, meets an unlikely series of character actors and eventually saves the day after a neck-wrenching series of plot twists.
(2002-02-07)

SPRUNG
Bucktown's Spring restaurant is one of the most celebrated of the past year's openings. Seven months in, it's exceeded the expectations of partners Sue-Kim Drohomyrecky, Peter Drohomyrecky and 34-year-old chef Shawn McClain. After seven well-received years as chef/partner at Evanston's four-star Trio, McClain wanted to expand on what he knew as both manager and a chef, and to work with innovative cuisine in a more affordable setting.
(2002-02-07)

UNSEASONED
The last time I flew into New York, the 767 rode low over the lights of Manhattan, as if tugged gently along the beaded arterial glow of Broadway. It's a sooty dusk this December day, not from smoke, but from fog and shattered light. It is as if this spectacle were composed of albumen and platinum and memory, like a Stieglitz print on a clean, well-lighted gallery's wall.
(2002-01-31)

A THOUSAND WORDS
(2002-01-31)

SLUSH LIFE
(2002-01-24)

SCARY MOVIE
(2002-01-24)

FIRE FROM ABOVE
(2002-01-17)

LISTING CRAFT
(2002-01-10)

FICTION REVIEW
(2002-01-10)

VALET SPARKING
(2002-01-03)

GOOD GRIEF
(2002-01-03)