Special delivery for ‘Postman’ (Il Postino)

The centerpiece of the American Cinematheque’s Nothing Left to Do but Cry: The Films of Massimo Troisi is inevitably the 1995 Oscar-nominated “The Postman” (Il Postino), which will be shown Saturday at the Aero in Santa Monica. (The series runs Friday through Wednesday.)

One of the most popular foreign films of the last decade, it starred Troisi, a beloved Neapolitan comic actor and director, as a simple mail carrier on Capri. He develops an extraordinary and touching friendship with the Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda (Philippe Noiret), then living in exile.

By the time the film was released it had gained added poignancy because Troisi, afflicted with congenital heart problems, had insisted on putting off heart transplant surgery until shooting was completed, and within hours of finishing his role, Troisi died in his sleep. He was 41.

Troisi’s funeral drew 10,000 mourners, illustrating his enormous popularity. However, the three films available for preview in the six-film series suggest that Troisi’s style and humor when directing himself does not travel well. Troisi was a handsome man with dark, expressive eyes and thick, dark hair that he could style for comic effect. However, his comedy is exceedingly verbal, never a plus for subtitled fare. In all three films he plays less-than-smart guys, and frankly, this combination quickly becomes tiresome. (Surely it is not insignificant that “Il Postino” was directed by his friend Michael Radford rather than by Troisi himself.)

The series opens Friday with “The Ways of the Lord Are Limited” (1987), in which Troisi plays a humble Roman barber who has become paralyzed after his aristocratic girlfriend (Jo Champa) decides she should marry a more suitable man even though she clearly cares for the barber. Set in the ‘30s, the film is a beautiful period piece but slight and slow.

“The Ways” will be followed by “I’m Starting From Three,” Troisi’s 1981 debut film, a huge hit on home ground but particularly hard going. The basis of its humor is Troisi’s tetchy way with Neapolitan slang, and therefore it is virtually untranslatable. He’s a none-too-bright Neapolitan who gives in to wanderlust out of boredom with his factory job. He crosses paths in Florence with a nurse (Fiorenza Marchegiani) but is too bumbling to express his attraction. Incredibly, this Neapolitan’s aunt insists that “We [Italians] don’t talk enough” -- in a film in which little else seems to happen.

“Nothing Left to Do but Cry” (1984), which screens Sunday, costars Roberto Benigni (of the seriously overrated “Life Is Beautiful”), who also co-wrote and co-directed the film with Troisi. It adds up to more wistfulness than any one film can withstand.

Troisi plays a dim type who, while traveling with his dithery pal (Benigni) through the countryside, experiences car trouble. The two are forced to seek shelter for the night in a large, ancient inn only to wake up the next morning to find themselves in the 15th century. A little of Benigni always goes a long way, and the adventures of the two pals are only mildly amusing.

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‘70s time capsule

Outfest Wednesdays at the Egyptian presents Serge Gainsbourg’s 1976 “Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus” (“I Love You No More”), inspired by his and his actress-singer wife Jane Birkin’s notoriously sexy song of the same name.

At once strikingly contemporary in its take on sexual fluidity and at times merely pretentious, alternating between surprising tenderness and dark, outrageous humor, the film concerns a pair of young trash collectors, Krassky (Joe Dallesandro) and Padovan (Hugues Quester), who are lovers scrounging dumps in a desert-like region that’s supposed to be in the American Southwest.

Krassky is unexpectedly taken with Birkin’s roadside diner waitress, nicknamed Johnny because she is so boyishly slim. The film deals with Johnny’s struggle to accommodate Krassky’s sexual tastes; the payoff for her efforts is ironic in the utmost. Birkin is like a wounded doe, and Dallesandro, in what may well be his most fully realized and shaded portrayal, is at his hunkiest. This raunchy ‘70s time capsule is strictly for adults.

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Screenings

Nothing Left to Do but Cry: The Films of Massimo Troisi

* “The Postman”: 8 p.m. Saturday

* “The Ways of the Lord Are Limited” and “I’m Starting From Three”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “Nothing Left to Do but Cry”:

5 p.m. Sunday

Where: Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

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Outfest Wednesdays

* “Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus”: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: americancinematheque.com; (323) 466-FILM