Il mare

This is one of the lost masterpieces of Italian cinema. But where can you see it? I'm not going to give away the plot, but anyone who liked L'Avventura would surely enjoy this.

Derek Jarman once told me it was his favourite film. It has all the elements of Antonioni and much, much more. It is definitely ripe for rediscovery. Maybe some enterprising film distributor (Mr Bongo?) will read this and take note!

It doesn't make sense that so many 3rd rate Italian comedies of this period are available in various countries, but this serious film is completely unknown.

Set against the luxurious battlements of Capri, 'Il Mare' (1962) follows three young individuals during the island's desolate winter. The Roman emperor Commodus once banished his sister and niece to Capri and then had them murdered-a historical anecdote not usually associated with this romanticized island, which Neruda described as the "queen rock" ("reina de roca") but more fitting for introducing 'Il Mare'. The film offers sparse biographical details about its characters, revealing only that one is an actor. By their cultured haughtiness and other habits, it appears that each is accustomed to the finer things in life but currently suffers from the trauma of various unspecified romantic thorns, as indicated by a whelping outburst from each.

The three run into one another and behave in a beastly way, but avoid vulgarity. Atmospherically cold and mysterious, tonally somewhere between more well-known films such as Antonioni's 'L'Eclisse' (also 1962) and Bazzoni's 'La donna del lago' (1965), 'Il Mare' is full of intriguing, icy, and serpentine chemistry that is its own.

'Il Mare' is now being discussed within the context of 'queer cinema,' largely due to the nuanced tension between the two male leads, which suggests a deeper connection beyond typical heterosexual interactions. The younger man appears to romantically imprint upon the elder on the first evening of their meeting, using him as a proxy for his ex. A discussion about how to drink Haig whisky reminded me of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's advice about relaxing, which famously provided "between the lines" instructions on sexual tempo to gay youths that went over the heads of many parents when it played on the radio. 'Il Mare' certainly warrants discussion in terms of the lineage of queer cinema, although it feels somewhat like it "happens to be queer." The actual sex depicted is between the "actor" and the "woman" as their roles are labeled.

The central theme revolves around three wounded individuals confronting or succumbing to the 'sea,' which serves as a metaphor for various existential challenges-be it the indifference of the universe, the perversity of fate, or the crapshoot of romance. Although hardly anyone saw the movie on release, both Derek Jarman and Bill Douglas were greatly inspired by it. It's suggested that Tony Richardson must have seen it prior to making 'Mademoiselle,' and I propose that Bazzoni (or Rossellini, his co-director on 'La donna del lago') must have seen it as well. Bill Douglas went to see the movie over twenty times, as his local cinema kept a copy and played it whenever they had a gap in the programming.

A rather elusive and heady movie that stays with me days later, scenes like the " assassination acting" and "the perfuming" are iconic. There are also fine astral images, such as the woman and the actor talking with the sun between them.

The excellent score for this first film of Giuseppe Patroni Griffi is by Giovanni Fusco, preferred composer of Michelangelo Antonioni. It was Antonioni's seminal 'L' Avventura' that created a new cinematic language without which Griffi's film would not have been possible. There are distinct echoes of Antonioni here with themes of ennui and the fundamental impossibility of relationships although the angst is tempered by touches of ironic humour.

The images of off-season Capri are beautifully captured by Enno Guarnieri whilst the principles perform with finesse.

An interesting piece which serves as an introduction to a director whose subsequently 'arty' output is never likely to be of universal appeal.

The program booklet for the 1963 New York Film Festival (first one ever) shows that "Il mare" was scheduled for one screening on September 17 at 6:30. The blurb made reference to the Venice Film Festival showing where the movie had been "greeted by one of those sessions of prolonged booing, hissing, and cat-calls that, at festivals, generally herald a masterpiece." Later the film received non-theatrical distribution in 16mm by Audio Brandon Films. I do not believe it was shown commercially anywhere in the U.S., though it may have had minor runs and was shown by film societies on college campuses and elsewhere before the prints were withdrawn from distribution. I first saw it in Providence in April 1980 when the local Italian American Cultural Society sponsored one showing at the Cable Car Cinema.

I recently saw it again on an unsubtitled DVD from a private source. What I remembered of the film, its stark atmosphere and the special beauty of off-season Capri, superbly photographed, still held true for me. Also holding true was the stunning pretentiousness and Antoniennui (to borrow Andrew Sarris' clever coinage)of the whole piece, like a directorial wet-dream inspired by the island sequences of "L'Avventura." It has fine photogenic actors speaking some impossible dialog. It is a synthesis and time-capsule and reductio-ad-absurdum of early 1960s art house cinema, beautiful yet unbearable, requiring multiple cups of the free espresso the art cinemas of that epoch used to supply their patrons to kick-start them back into the world of the living.

Three characters, a man played by Umberto Orsini, a youth played by Dino Mele and a woman played by Francoise Prevost move around each other in winter on the deserted island of Capri. I think the constant reference to an almost Antonioni inspired film is a mistake. Patroni-Griffi had his own vision of the difficulty of human and sexual contact, but adds another dimension to love's possibilities and that is homosexual desire. The man and the youth do not consummate their attraction and Francoise Prevost, lost to her own desires tries to satisfy the man. This trio unlike the one in Antonioni's ' L'Avventura ' do not lose one of the three and sadly Antonioni in my opinion had no conception of homosexuality, other than two stereotypes swishing through the streets of London in ' Blow Up. ' Griffi was clearly well aware that love has two poles of loving, hetero and homo and perhaps he was aware that the cinema of the early 1960's was not ready to see at least a physical outcome to male desire. I have ' Il Mare ' with English subtitles and is it still ignorance or homophobia that prevents its distribution on DVD ? I would like to challenge those who prefer to ignore this film's existence to come out of their heterosexual closets and to equally acknowledge that this is not some niche film that they can avoid. It is a fine film, beautifully filmed and acted and is in my opinion one of the greatest Italian films of its period. A lost film that can be found, but perversely remains lost. As mysterious a situation as the lost woman on Antonioni's island but even that mystery had its reasons if Antonioni had decided so. Distributors decide and they can on this masterpiece.