|
Italian Beauty
Ricordati di me, to
which American producers absolutely, positively couldn’t
resist adding My Love to for no particular reason at
all for U.S. release, has gotten a lot a gripes from critics
for being about self-centered characters we hate. When
doing a Rottentomatoes.com search on the movie, the words
self-centered show up in almost every review-bite shown.
Are the characters
loathingly self-centered?
Before I delve into this
already decided-on observation, I must quote a lovely woman,
Sr. Anne Denise, whose been no less than a mentor to me and
one of the most valuable friends in my life, who, when
discussing literature, as she is often wont to do, first
exposed me to the concept of the novel being a mirror
walking down the street. And what the heck does that mean,
you ask? The idea is that the realist novel, not sci-fi or
fantasy, not magical realism, not politically motivated
commentary, but a work meant to be life as we know it,
should provide a reflection, an accurate image shown back at
us about what it is to be human. Not, on the surface, a
deep philosophical commentary, but instead merely a mirror
of what we are, how we behave, and what we think, reflected
back at us for us to see, oftentimes, for the first time.
To me, realist film
accomplishes the same thing. Remember Me, My Love is, for
all intents and purposes, a family drama. It’s more than
that, of course, as all families are more than a mere
grouping of people functioning solely within the confines of
the nuclear or extended unit, but, for quick description, it
is the story of a family. And like most families who’ve
never been television shows in the ‘50s, the Ristuccia
family has all the problems of any heterogenous grouping of
people trying to function as a whole. In fact, at times,
they don’t particularly like each other. It is here that we
must remember that to like and to love are two completely
different things.
Carlos, the father, is
writer who’s abandoned his craft and his baby – his almost
finished novel – and who works a fairly non-descript job for
a man preparing to run for office. Giulia, the mother, is a
school teacher with dreams of acting that she is timidly
still chasing, perhaps after a hiatus. Valentina (Nicoletta
Romanoff, who is extremely pretty) is the almost 18 year old
daughter with grand dreams of dancing her way to stardom and
a very liberal moral compass. Paulo is the almost 19 year
old brother with all the dreams of love and need that any
romantic, moody, teenage boy has ever had. These are the
people in our neighborhood. The family acts as a family
completely in the sense that it is a functioning grouping
making sure that all the daily needs and requirements are
met (getting to school, work, earning a living, being where
everyone needs to be when they need to be there) and is
successful in that goal. But that it is: it is merely a
functional goal accomplishing unit. What isn’t being
accomplished is the love, support, tenderness and attention
that the human spirit needs to grow, for any of them.
Monica Bellucci is…
gorgeous… but back to the review, is an ex-girlfriend of
Carlos’ in almost the exact situation. What is missing here
and what ends up being the motivation for each character in
the movie in a different way, is passion. Passion for life,
but mostly passion from others, love to be given, support to
be given, and emotional depth.
The story is one of
adultery. The story is not astounding original. In fact,
it’s the oldest tale in the book about a problem very
prominent in today’s go,go,go society… and still the oldest
problem. A group of people bonded by family and love not
getting the love they need in a society to goal-oriented too
focus on individual emotions.
Is this every family? Not
generally, no, but certain specifics, I imagine, apply in
every family. Directed in an almost frenetic manner by
writer/director Gabriele Muccino, the story takes off in
controlled chaos and stays there, even as the story gets
more out of control, the director manages to let his cameras
impart it all in a manner that makes you feel the chaos, but
never lose the story. Using handhelds to follow characters
from room to room, we are aware of the precarious balance
this family must hold to not tumble, and the growing space
between them. Muccino uses visual symbolism whenever
possible in the least heavy-handed way he can to fortify
points without assaulting us with more information than we
can handle in the frey. Valentina, for example, is almost
never shown without a mirror in the nearby vicinity. In
fact, often, the first image we see of her is a mirror
reflection, reminding us that Valentina is all appearance
first, reality later, or never at all.
Also a surprising decision
for the director and for European cinema, is the shocking
lack of nudity and sexuality. Infinitely more comfortable
these things than we are, European cinema almost always
fearlessly delves into them on screen, but Muccino instead
makes sure the focus stays on the emotion and not any other
sexual stimuli like lust. The sex is purposeful, but never
erotic. In fact, the only bit of nudity at all is a single
nipple, belonging to Giulia as she cries desperately in the
bath tub. Here the point is not that she’s nude, but rather
that she’s naked, an important differentiation.
Valentina comes the
closest, if she doesn’t actually cross the line, to being a
loathed self-centered character. She’s vain, desperate for
attention, and willing to do almost anything to be in the
spotlight. When we are briefly given an opportunity to like
her when she allows her mother to stay at a party with her,
she blows it by saying something so incredibly cruel to her
mother, that we wonder if we’ll ever be able to look at
Valentina neutrally again.
Carlos, meanwhile, has run
into Alessia (Bellucci) at a party his wife (the stunning
and talented Laura Morante from The Dancer Upstairs
and countless Italian films) has opted not to go to, going
to the movies by herself instead. Carlos and Alessia fall
into a whirlwind affair, taking solace in each other like
two soldiers wounded at the same battle… and they are. Both
are lovelorn, unappreciated, trapped without passion and
wanting back what they had before, as Alessia says in my
favorite line of the movie, they were “caught… in the prime
of our youth, these assholes!”
The story goes from there,
in many ways similar to the story of
American Beauty,
without the dark humor, but leaves us, ultimately in more of
quandary than it gave us at the beginning. When all seems
right, it seems to say, it still isn’t.
And who’s fault is that?
So we return to the
question of self-centeredness. I expected, based on all the
reviews, to hate these people… and I did not. I certainly
didn’t like them all the time, I certainly felt they did
self-centered things, some more than others, some almost
impulsively, even our hero Carlos (Fabrizio Bentivoglio, who
has worked with Morante previously in Mike Figgis’ Hotel),
the most consistently sympathetic character in the film,
doing something extremely selfish by the end. But return we
must to the idea of the mirror walking down the street, the
mirror here held up so well by Muccini and co-writer Heidrun
Schleef. Can we ourselves watch and be completely innocent
of what we are judging these characters for doing? Are they
that far removed from decisions we ourselves have
made in the past. The originality in the movie lies
completely in its banality, the fact that none of this is at
all outlandish, new, or strange. What is it to be selfless,
and can a self not at all be selfish, and is not some
selfishness required to move on, and what level of
selfishness is acceptable, okay or forgivable. Can a person
truly be selfless and still be a self?
And sometimes, is a
“selfish” decision, one that will eventually make things
easier for others?
The question is whether my
fellow critics were truly offended by things they would
never do, or whether they were offended by things they had,
in fact, done.
I know the
latter affected me more.
A note on
Monica Bellucci: I have no watched Monica perform in movies
from three different countries and act in FOUR different
languages. Monica is Italian and acts superbly well in
films from her own country. What blows me away is that
she’s just as good in French films performing in French, in
American films, performing in English, and in even in The
Passion of the Christ, performing in Aramaic! Monica
Bellucci is truly a professional, and my hat, again, is off
to her. |
