Yo la conocía bien

A definite highlight of Italian filmmaker Antonio Pietrangeli's career, on which would be tragically put a kibosh by his untimely death in 1968, in reality, people do die of drowning after falling off a cliff.

I KNEW HER WELL continues his streak of strong female presentation, first and foremost, it is a story about a prelapsarian countryside Italian girl Adriana (a 19-year-old Sandrelli uncannily likens a luscious Taylor Swift), who jauntily pursues her star-making dream in the capital city.

Pietrangeli and his co-writers configure a loosely chronological and episodic narrative detailing the interactions between Adriana and a smorgasbord of male characters, from boyfriends, bedfellows, exploiters to sympathetic have-nots, scathingly refracts the sprawling turpitude infesting the showbiz, that a young and unsophisticated Adriana is always given the short end of the stick, can never fall in love with the right guy, and occasional sparkling of kindness dims quickly since it is just not the right time, and the film's ostensibly disengaged observation gives way to an abrupt kicker in the end, where a dysphoria-stricken Adriana takes a radical step to purge her profound disillusion out of her existence.

Wonderfully concatenating manifold vignettes into a cogent case study pertaining to the disintegration of a starlet-to-be's pipe dream (often meld perfectly with era-specific tuneage and dancing routines), Pietrangeli enlists a swell group of multi-national supporting actors, natives Manfredi (unscrupulous), Salerno (pompous), Fabrizi (smarmy), Nero (four-square), joined by a French (Brialy), a German (Fuchsberger), an Austrian (Hoffman) and a Swiss (Adorf) to bolster the mainstay, among whom, Ugo Tagnazzi brilliantly steals the limelight with his backbreaking tap dance and abjectly obsequious attitude as a struggling has-been.

As our leading lady, Sandrelli is de facto a phenomenal wet-behind-the-ears ingénue, but also excels in bringing about a palpable strength of integrity and defiance that is well beyond her age, yet, more often than not, emanates a ghost of melancholia even when hijinks are in full swing. Unequivocally evokes a young girl's version of Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA, I KNEW HER WELL is an unalloyed Italian hidden gem exhumed from near obscurity with its shimmering amalgamation of vintage style, unaffected poignancy and incisive self-mockery.

A great capsule of life in Italy in the early 60s. There are shades of la Dolce Vita since every scene takes place in summer and features incredible clothing, but our point of view here is radically different: it is that of a vulnerable young woman instead of a successful jaded male intellectual like in the Fellini movie. The vita is not so dolce for the girl played by the innocent-looking Stefania Sandrelli (who was apparently only 19 when she starred in that film, but what maturity she displays as an actress already.) A peasant girl from the sticks, we meet her right away in Rome where she aspires to glamour, stardom, fame etc. But because she does not know anyone, and is both naive and not very bright to boot, she takes many wrong turns and indulges all the wrong people. This film is very entertaining, because we are in Rome in 1964, it feels and looks like a hot summer all along, and the dresses worn by Sandrelli are unbelievably glamorous. But it is a ferocious social satire, and it is tender neither to our silly heroine nor to the sharks who exploit her and many others. The black&white photography is gorgeous on the eyes. Nino Manfredi and Ugo Tognazzi do each a memorable turn among the victim/exploiters that populates this Roman shark tank. Sandrelli is so good (and so beautiful) that she manages to make her character attaching in spite of her flaws.

Italian drama from director Antonio Pietrangeli. Stefania Sandrelli stars as a young woman working in a seaside beauty salon with dreams of becoming a movie star. Her efforts in that direction have mixed results.

This is more of a character study than a plot-driven narrative. It's also a critique on the exploitation of women. Sandrelli is very good as the beautiful Adriana, who's not so much ambitious as bored with her life. She's shallow in that way that beautiful young women can be when they don't have to exert much effort to move in social circles. However, she's also used by virtually everyone she meets, either for profit or pleasure, and Adriana is usually left alone and in the same place as where she started. Adriana's desire for change is also exhibited in her hairstyles - she sports more than a half dozen throughout the film.

Director Pietrangeli also makes the audience complicit in the exploitation of Adriana, with camera "ogling" like her much as her many suitors do. From what I've read, this film is also well-liked in Italy for the many mid-60's pop music hits heard on the soundtrack. Recommended.

This film is an elongated character study. The first hour drags, and I almost stopped watching. It picks up speed after that, but don't expect something uplifting.

Country girl moves to the "big city" to live an independent life and to pursue ambitions of succeeding in the entertainment industry. The IMDb summary already clues you in to the outcome. Ultimately, this movie relies upon the way it transpires; sadly, the ending offers more confusion than insight.

Don't be fooled by the reviews: it's not a masterpiece. Sorry, but it's not. It is definitely, however, and excellent example of what it means to flesh out a leading character. If it were made today, it would be a textbook example of the hidden manifestations of mental health issues.

Kind of a smaller version of La Dolce Vita with a female lead, this slice of 1960s Roman life is great in its own right. Stefania Sandrelli (probably best remembered as the woman who shared a sexy dance with Dominque Sanda in The Conformist) plays an aspiring actress and model who spends her nights partying her ass off and her mornings alone. The plot is pretty simple and pretty predictable, but director Pietrangeli shoots the film in a very experiential style - it feels like you're partying alongside Sandrelli, and it's just a really wonderful experience. Sandrelli herself is outstanding. It's a character that could come off as a cliché, but she plays her so knowingly and passionately. It's very, very easy to fall in love. The film is stuffed full of wonderful '60s pop songs (the only ones I recognized were by Millie Small, a Jamaican ska artist best known for her hit "My Boy Lollipop"), tremendous clothes and hairdos, and that crisp 1960s black and white. A must-see for anyone who loves the Italian films of this era.