Il Postino: The Postman

Three years after escaping Chile, Pablo Neruda is still in exile, spending the summer of 1952 in Capri. Il Postino: The Postman also finds him on an Italian island in the company of his wife. He is frequently visited by Mario, a village local who has chosen to work as a postman rather than becoming a fisherman like his father. Most of his work consists of carrying mail to Neruda from colleagues (and female admirers) all over the world, and the two gradually form a friendship that influences Mario's view of politics, language, and poetry. Most importantly, Neruda helps him overcome his shyness and win the heart of his beloved Beatrice.

Il Postino earned Michael Radford an Academy Awards nomination, and it has remained a crowd-pleasing classic, not only because of its beautiful cinematography and touching love story. Without ever becoming pretentious or over-simplifying Neruda's poetics, it bears witness to the power of words – as a way to connect humans and bridge the gap between our inner and outer world, or to incite fear and suspicion. Philippe Noiret (of Cinema Paradiso fame) is solid as Neruda, but the film's real star is Massimo Troisi as the imaginative and irresistably charming Mario. Tragically, Troisi postponed a heart surgery to play in the film, and he died the day after the film was finished, aged 41. Cato Fossum

Michael Radford (b. 1946) is a British director and scriptwriter, and graduate from the National Film and Television School. In addition to Il Postino, which is based on a novel by Antonio Skármeta, he is perhaps best known for his adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 (1984), as well as the period drama White Mischief (1987).