Corpo Celeste

I'm grateful to finally find a film that is sensitive, subtle, original in its view of people and has something to say (about faith and the church, society and outsiders.) It's Italian, but only two characters act like the Italian angry prototype, and only briefly. The acting is extraordinary. Yle Vianello, who plays the thirteen years old girl, seems as authentic as it gets. It is her story-after ten years in Switzerland, she returns to a small town in Italy with her single mother and 18-year-old sister. Right away she's called to participate in the endless studies for the communion at church. She tries to fit in, but is swept by other types of emotional and spiritual searches.

After a slow start, I really enjoyed this one. Yle Vianello is wonderful as Marta, the earnest young girl about to go through the rite of confirmation in the Catholic Church. In a quiet way and without resorting to something like a story of priestly abuse, director Alice Rohrwacher gives us a powerful critique. She shows church leaders to be almost hopelessly far from Christ's precepts, and more interested in indoctrinating the young (in some cases with untranslated and unexplained dogma) and their own positions within the hierarchy than in real teaching. The drive from Reggio Calabria to the abandoned hill town to tussle over a crucifix seems like a perfect metaphor. I felt for Marta's coming-of-age alienation from her changing body, her mean older sister, and her crisis of faith. The subplot of the priest's assistant, a woman who finds out just how little she means in the patriarchy of the church, is also strong.

Alice Rohrwacher cannot disappoint.

If like myself, you have seen her latter films (and don't skip the documentary La Futura) - and are wonder-ing about seeing this film, rest assured even in her debut, you shall be rewarded.

This film is a little slower or more subtle perhaps than the others. Rohrwacher has not yet put her full faith in nature, but there are gusts of winds that sort of blow the (what else) young teenage female heroine through the town she has recently moved to.

In contrast to the church's literal formula, young Marta goes on her own pilgrimage. She is a misfit both in catechism and her sister's borrowed clothing. The viewer may have to be gentle with her and this film , but ultimately there is a lot going on. Trust in her, as in all of Rohrwacher's adolescent savants. The wisdom of the naif.

I feel like this could pair well with the more grandiose "The Mission." The film is not so much about religion, though it can feel that way. To me the tale is more about abandonment.

Amazing how the director connects a famous phrase from the Bible, Christ's cry - in Greek as part of the aforementioned formula, to the town of Roghudi Vecchio. There is also the subplot of Santa (the real spirit of the small church) and Don Mario (definitely the corporate/corporeal side) - and Santa fearing his abandoning.

There are religious tropes that tantalize through-out, walking on water, loaves and fishes, the blood of innocents - but do not be led into the temptation of trope tagging, instead enjoy the beauty of doubt, and the wrestling with abandonment.

Well that, and Rohrwacher's portrayal of adolescence as somehow more knowing and more flexibly real than rigid structures of catechism and capitalism and the other isms Rohrwacher so strongly distrusts.

As anyone who has seen "The Wonders" or "Happy as Lazzaro" will know Alice Rohrwacher is one of the marvels of contemporary cinema. "Corpo Celeste" is her lesser-known, but no less astonishing, debut made with an almost documentary realism as we get to know the world through the eyes of 13 year old Marta as she comes to terms with growing up. Unlike other girls her age, however, Marta is subjected to perhaps a little more religious education than is usual as she prepares for her confirmation. This is Catholic Italy, after all.

Like Lazzaro, Marta is possessed of an innocence that is almost other-worldly. She might like to wear her big sister's bra but she's also remarkably childlike; Rohrwacher does innocence like no-one else. She also imbues her film with a nice sense of humour, even bordering on the cynical, (the priest whose ringtone on his mobile is 'The Minute Waltz' is both ambitious and something of a prig and is magnificently played by the late Salvatore Cantalupo). Indeed, Rohrwacher draws wonderfully naturalistic performances from her entire cast and in particular from Yie Vianello as Marta. In fact, "Corpo Celeste" isn't just a superb debut but one of the best films about both childhood and religion I've ever seen. With only three features to her name, Rohrwacher may just be my favourite director right now.

While I loved the nuanced and sensitive performance of Yle Vianello as Marta, I couldn't help but feel that writer/director Alice Rohrwacher's portrayal of the Catholic church in Corpo Celeste was an overdrawn caricature – that only reinforced the usual stereotypes against institutional religion. In contrast, the almost intuitive spirituality Marta possesses – of gentleness towards others, wonder at creation, curiosity about the world + its people, reverence for the divine – those elements could have been connected to broad Christian doctrines of natural revelation, love for neighbor, and the work of the Spirit, but they were not. Though the ending makes Marta's journey beyond the film feel uncertain, somehow I'm convinced (if it is possible to extrapolate) that Marta will be ultimately alright in the end. She may not find truth in the unfortunate parish she finds herself in, but she's much closer to the Truth than almost everyone else in the film. We see this in the innocent delight over the kittens that she joyfully shares with her classmates. We see this in her desire to understand the phrase from her catechism recitation "Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?" which she goes around repeating to herself without knowing the meaning. This forsaken uttering of Christ on the cross ironically rings quite true in Marta's life as she is mistreated by those in church leadership, cruelly bullied by her older sister, and witnesses powerlessly the brutal killing of the kittens. In spite of all the hypocrisy and vacuity of the parish, when Marta finds herself next to a huge dusty crucifix in a forsaken little village church, she instinctively uses her hands and shirt sleeve to gently and reverently wipe the dirt off the body of Christ. Somehow, in spite of it all, a real spirituality and an intimate relationship with Christ has been apprehended.