Mia madre

"Mia Madre" is the sort of picture you might see being made in Europe…but it's far from the sort of movie you'd expect from Hollywood. After all, a film about a middle-aged woman who is nearing an emotional collapse is not big box office. And, it's certainly not the sort of picture the target audience of 16-30 would rush to the theaters to see. However, if you are patient and give it a chance, you're bound to get a lot out of this Italian film from director Nanni Moretti (who also co-wrote and co-stars in the movie).

When the story begins, Margherita (Margherita Bay) is having a very tough time in life. She's directing a movie, just separated from her husband and is dealing with her mother's impending death. To make things worse, the picture has an American star (John Turturro) who is having trouble delivering his lines in Italian…and Margherita is far from patient with the man. What follows is the progression of events in Margherita's life…and the feeling that sooner or later, she's going to snap. After all, to make all this even worse she's middle-aged…a time which is tough on all of us…and a time of change. I should know…I am at that time in my life as well! And, I guess this is why I could relate to Margherita and her story so well.

While I wouldn't rush to the theaters to see a film like Mia Madre, it's perfect to see such a 'little' film at home on your television. It is not a sweeping saga and doesn't need the big screen treatment… which is great since the movie is new to Netflix this month. It also, incidentally, received a nearly eight minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival…so I am apparently not the only one who liked it and recommend you see it!

Moretti tells a heart-wrenching story without using overly dramatic tones, and builds around it other story lines, which all share the theme of people coming to terms with reality. The main storyline is really moving and real, and I could totally relate to it - what I like about this film is that it is autobiographical, but you do not need to be a world-famous film director to relate to it. Through Margherita, Moretti at times will fearlessly show you the everyday routine details of both his professional and personal life, totally demystifying his world-famous-film-director persona. I really liked Margherita Buy's acting; John Turturro has a very difficult role to play, because he must continually switch between acting and meta-acting, also switching between English and Italian, but he pulls it off nicely. The last 10 seconds of this movie are the perfect ending.

Melodrama is low in the genre pecking order because of its emotional exaggerations and use of stereotyped characters, most of whom are women. In this sense, Mia Madre (2016) is a purely melodramatic exploration of emotions associated with the dying of a parent as seen through the eyes of a loving daughter. This would be unoriginal on its own, so the film weaves multiple relationships into the narrative, all of which are stressed to breaking point, with a few comedic touches to make the story bearable. This matrix of emotional turbulence is standard fare in the dying parent narrative, but Mia Madre has a fine sense of balance in blending laughter and tears.

Margherita is a single-minded Italian director trying to complete a film when she learns that her mother Ada is dying. She is also dealing with a failed marriage, a teenage daughter who needs mothering, and the need to visit Ada every day. Her brother quits his job to care for Ada but Margherita tries to keep her world intact. As a perfectionist, she is demanding on the set where filming is not going well because the leading man is hopeless. Her film is about an economic downturn, a failing factory and workers facing bleak times, sub-plot lines that mirror her own fractured life. It is a moving study of how a professional woman accustomed to being in control must deal with helplessness in the face of impending tragedy. It could easily have been self- indulgent except for the almost unnerving grace and dignity with which Ada deals with dying while those around her become increasingly frayed. Audience response will depend to a large extent on their empathy for, or experience of, these stages in the life journey.

In many respects the mother is the star of this film. While hers is the less demanding acting role, she is a portrait of what many of us want to imagine as the peaceful exit of a beloved parent. Margherita on the other hand traverses an emotional roller-coaster on which the shock of what is happening forces her to review the meaning of her life. The camera often dwells too long on moments of introspection but the performances of both principals are finely nuanced, emotionally rich and entirely believable. There are many reasons to praise this film, but in the main it is for audiences willing to vicariously experience a slow and dense melodrama about loss.

Nanni Moretti is an accomplished filmmaker who won many awards as an actor, writer, director, producer across Europe for 4 decades, and a few in South America. He is a Cannes Film Festival favourite and won the 2015 Prize of the Ecumenical Jury with this fine film "Mia Madre" (aka My Mother) who was inspired partly by the recent death of his mother.

It was thus with immense pleasure that I was able to attend his TIFF first screening in his presence with an interpreter (even though his command of English is quite good especially understanding) and hear first hand a few details from the master.

First in terms of prizes, his 2001 film "La stanza del figlio" (aka The Son's Room) seems to be a contender for his masterpiece yet even though it is an extraordinary film, I can think of other films who dealt with the subject of losing a child much better, namely two in the same year with riveting "In the Bedroom" and even better Australian "Lantana", and later "Rabbit Hole (2010)" with Australian actress Nicole Kidman.

For "Mia Madre", we explore the dying and death of a parent but this time, this movie sets itself apart. It is dark and light with humour, showing scenes with conflicted and strong characters with multiple layers, exploring emotional and intellectual depth. It weaves between multiple layers of reality and meta-reality, time, thoughts, dreams, desires. It goes beyond death, before, in between... It is beautiful!

Moretti speaks of his inability to tell his actors to "be besides the character" (as opposed to being completely immersed in them) although that is what he would like to tell them. He feels too many acting awards go to people who become characters and lose themselves. He also mentions that he is closer to the distraught Margherita character (played by marvellous Margherita Buy who is a accomplished actress to say the least) than to the brother he plays in the film and wishes he had a better handle of the dying mother situation in real life. These small details show a level of maturity and complexity of thought with a crisp vision and appreciation. A non-assuming but assured wisdom can be felt from the man and the magnus opus I just saw.

Margherita's character is a director like Moretti so the piece is self-reflective in many ways and involves an interplay of many realities, possibilities and problems to deal with at the same time. Then he brings John Turturro to play the role of Barry Huggins who is a now barely able to remember a line actor of old fame and prestige with a sharp tongue and Hollywood arrogance. This creates some comic relief and hilarious scenes but also serve to contrast the work problems with the life problems and the miscommunication and misunderstanding of everyone.

The movie is a dream of sort, but a vivid one. Moretti's life distress gave us his Pièce de résistance.

Thank you for sharing. Thank you for caring.

Italy / France 2015 | 106 mins | Toronto International Film Festival | Italian (English subtitles) + some English

Nanni Moretti may not be everybody's cup of tea, but his relevance cannot be denied. Very few artists has been so constantly present, so honestly faithful to themselves, and at the same time so careful in portraying the evolution of Italian society in the last decades. You put together the twelve movies Moretti has done in his forty years of activity and you get a perfect course in history of this country. It is not strange, then, that his latest movie looks like an attempt to portray confusion and uncertainty. As almost always, the story is based on personal experience from Moretti. In the past he has made movies about growing up and getting older (Caro Diario), movies about having a son (Aprile), and now he is sharing with the audience his reflections about the recent loss of his mother, frequently mentioned – and, once, even featured – in his works.

The story is about a director trying to complete a movie set in the contemporary scenario of economic crisis, focused on the loss of jobs in an Italian factory after the purchase of the compound from a USA investor. But the director cannot concentrate on the movie, as her old mother is dying in a hospital. There is a big difference between the main story (the death of the mother), which is told in a solemn and painfully slow way, and the story in the story (the script of the director's movie), whose lines and situations are formulaic, simple to the edge of stupidity ("Shit", as John Turturro says honestly in a moment of rage). Losing your mother is something that everybody's know is coming, sooner or later, but this doesn't mean you can be prepared: and in front of this terribly huge moment, everything else seems silly and preposterous.

The overall acting effort is really something to appreciate: Margherita Buy provides a complex, troubled counterpart for Moretti, who has limited himself to a supporting – yet important – role. John Turturro is the bright spot of the story: most of the situations where he is involved are really funny (neurotic Turturro and anxious Margherita Buy are a comedy duo with potential). Giulia Lazzarini portrays the sick mother, her energies slowly fading, with sensibility and measure: a really moving performance. She is by far the emotional centerpiece of the whole movie: in a story where everybody else seems willing to quit everything (relationships, day jobs, movie careers) for lack of meaning, the frail and weakened character of the mother, still willing to teach Latin to his niece until her very last moment and breath, actually teaches through the deep relationships she has with her family, and even with her former students, the surprising strength of human boundaries and love.