The perfect complement to our opera-on-film series is this droll and affecting documentary on the inhabitants of Casa Verdi, the Milanese retirement home for opera stars founded in 1902 by Giuseppe Verdi and originally supported by his royalties. "Some documentaries are made to educate, others exist to bear witness. The most precious, however, are those that defamiliarize their subjects--films that literally put things in a new light.... (Swiss director Daniel) Schmid has made a film about old age and dying which is neither sentimental nor grotesque but cumulatively startling.... Tosca's Kiss scarcely avoids the pathos of old people's stolid, tranced-out reveries or their comic confusion of life and art.... Indeed, it thrives on such scenes.... But the film comes truly into its own when a roomful of crones suddenly breaks into a lilting aria from Traviata. At these moments, Tosca's Kiss could stagger Descartes with its visceral duality of body and soul.... Tosca's Kiss gives new meaning to the cliche accolade, 'the performance of one's life'" (J. Hoberman, Village Voice).