Enjoyable 'Casanova' merits respect
DVD contains features that take a look into the movie's production on location in Venice
By Lisa Roney, staff writer
Posted on April 27, 2006

Heath Ledger playing a charming seducer in 18th-century Europe makes for one entertaining film. “Casanova” is a big production filled with raunchy comedy that probably will only be enjoyed by girls, but is enjoyable nonetheless.

Along with the feature film, the disc includes three featurettes and one extended scene. The first featurette, “Creating an Adventure” is a making-of special that spends 13 minutes going behind the scenes of the film. The cast and crew spend the whole time boasting about the fact that the entire film was shot on location in Venice.  However, there is a lot of in-between-takes footage that shows the audience, cast and crew working together when the cameras weren’t rolling.

“Dressing in Style,” the second featurette, spends five minutes looking at the lavish costumes of the period film. A breakdown analysis of the major characters’ clothing shows why everyone wore certain pieces, colors and fittings.

The extended scene, “Hidden in Plain Sight” is a lengthy five-and-a-half-minute sequence that is interesting to watch, but not very vital to the film’s plot. Featuring a hasty but cleverly attempted escape route, it provides the audience with Ledger (“Brokeback Mountain”) and Sienna Miller’s (“Alfie”) first romantic involvement. Although entertaining, nothing was lost from the message of the film without it.

The final featurette, “Visions of Venice,” spends three more minutes bragging about the wonders of shooting a film in Venice. It highlights some of the city’s finest attractions, and is really only useful to a world history major or someone interested in the traveling to Italy.

“Casanova” is a witty, sexy comedy that deserves more recognition than it received in theaters. The script is surprisingly clever, and banishes the idea that it is simply a teen flick disguised as a period piece. The DVD, while it includes more features than most films of its genre do, lacks its high potential of being as witty and entertaining as its film counterpart.