The Taviani brothers are fine directors —remember the great «Good morning, Babilonia» (1987) and recently the pseudo-documentary «Cesare deve morire», about the performance of Shakespeare's Julius Cesar play with Italian long term prisoners— but we have to assume that they are not very fluid in the art of narrating (and writing, in that case) their own stories, the cuts of the sequences are stiff, the editing is tough, plain, and also, at least in this case, the acting work of the performers are too theatrical, that makes this movie a little uncomfortable to see, as the interpreters (most of them too young, i'm afraid) were not moving in their natural environment or were not well directed... Ah, Pasolini Pasolini...! How we miss you...

Seven girls and three boys escape from Florence during the plague to a villa in the countryside and each day entertain each other telling stories.

Even if you are not familiar with the Decameron, you could enjoy the movie for the beautiful locations. In fact, that's what I liked better, the stories taking place in - so to speak - the original locations.

The film starts in a Florence miraculously turned back to the 14th century and even if the main characters run away from the plague very quickly, the feeling of hopelessness and desperation is quite realistic.

We get to see five stories, mostly sad and tragic and a couple providing comic relief. My favourite was the first, with the beautiful bride coming back from Heaven (metaphorically speaking). Acting varies wildly, with some performances being relatively good and others barely passable. The youngsters telling stories are quite stiff and awkward in their delivery of the lines.

The main issue is the lack of smoothness typical of episodic movies, but it still makes for an interesting viewing.