Respiro

Emanuele Crialese's Respiro is alive, sensual, and transcendent. Set in Lampedusa, an island southwest of Sicily, it is a film about mothers and sons, accepting differences, and the power of love to bring renewal and reconciliation. Gorgeously filmed by cinematographer Fabio Zamarion, Respiro captivates us with its bright Mediterranean sunlight and the expressive faces of the people, tanned and strikingly beautiful. Winner of the 2002 Cannes Critics Week award, the film is based on a local legend about a mother whose behavior was found to be offensive by the community and whose subsequent disappearance was the catalyst that brought the people together. Crialese's film has the feeling of myth and legend but also the overtones of the great Italian realist dramas of the 50s and 60s.

As gangs of unsupervised pre-teens carry out intermittent warfare among the desolate beaches and rocky landscapes, everyday life centers on fishing. While the husbands do the fishing, wives work in the fish processing plant and the boys help out their fathers and catch fish to use as trade for a chance to win an electric train set. Grazia (Valeria Golino) is the wife of macho but loving fisherman, Pietro (Vincenzo Amato) and mother of three: 13-year old Pasquale (Francesco Casisa), younger brother Filippo (Filippo Pucillo), and older sister Marinella (Veronica D'Agostino). Golina is radiant as the headstrong young mother and Casisa's performance as Pasquale completely captures the budding sexual awareness of a pre-teen. The film reflects the warmth of the Italian family and the closeness that Italian sons feel for their mothers but also depicts the old-fashioned attitudes of the tight-knit community, especially the subjugation of women.

In a revealing scene, Pasquale's brother, the adorable but mouthy Filippo and his friends follow his older sister Marinella to a private meeting place where she is seeking privacy with a shy young policeman, Pier Luigi (Elio Germano). Affronted by their seeming public display of affection, Filippo, less than half their size, confronts the two lovers and threatens to beat them up unless his sister goes home immediately. Unfortunately, everything is not right on the island. Grazia's behavior is increasingly defined by erratic mood swings. She flings dishes across the room, swims naked with her sons, and releases a herd of dogs from captivity, but it is not clear if she is ill or just rebellious and the film walks a tightrope between suggesting madness or the eccentricities of a free spirit.

It is soon apparent that the community has their own thoughts about her actions and she is seen as a threat to the social order. When Grazia's antics threaten to reach the breaking point, Pietro's family decides to send her to Milan to receive psychiatric treatment. Pasquale, however, always understanding and protective of his mother, hides her in one of the many caves along the rocky shore, bringing her food and reporting news of the search for her whereabouts. The ending can be interpreted in many different ways but I was touched by its haunting beauty. Is it to be taken literally, a dream of Pasquale's perhaps, or a fairy tale constructed from legend? I'm not sure but in any case, Respiro's combination of magic realism, natural beauty, and humanistic message will have you pricing the tickets for a trip to Lampedusa.

In Emanuele Crialese's lyrical drama Respiro, the sky is gorgeous. The sea is gorgeous. The harsh landscape is gorgeous. The children, even when they are behaving like little monsters, are gorgeous. The lead actress is gorgeous. There is so much obvious and intentional gorgeousness about this picture that we have to dig far down, past the scene painting, to find the story.

Although subtitled Grazia's island (Grazia is the lead role, magnificently realised by Valeria Golino), Respiro could have well been called "Scenes from rural Sicilian life", as the scenography, cinematography and tableaux-like imagery seem as important to the director as her thin narrative line. Respiro's locale is Lampedusa, a tiny island far off the west coast of Sicily. About the same latitude as Malta, this place is about as remote as it gets - Tunis is closer than Palermo. It can be safe to say that Italian time here has pretty much stood still for decades; this is Italy of de Sica and Mascagni, not Fellini and Prada. The men go out to sea, the children play, women pack fish, old black-clad crones meddle and the languid summer air of total boredom hangs down from the cloudless sky.

The story is fairly typical, the type that a few great (and many, many average) Italian filmmakers have been serving up for the last three generations - life in the sun drenched rural, ritualistic and tribal south and the saga of one village denizen who dares to break the moulds. How long since Cinema Paradiso?

Grazia (incidentally, the name means "grace" - get it?) is a loving, rebellious humanist - she loves her children, she loves music, she loves swimming in her panties, she loves the Vespa-propelled wind in her hair and loathes the suffering of any living creature. She does not love to cook, or put on rubber wellies and plastic smock to pack sardines. This high-spirited recklessness is just a bit too much for this dusty place and she is duly deemed mad. Golino, who acts in four languages and has had decent parts in Leaving Las Vegas, Immortal Beloved and Frida, is a joy to watch. There is not a moment forced or unnatural about her performance and this is saying a fair bit, considering her several mad scenes. She conveys brilliantly the purgatory of a loving woman who wants more, but knows neither what it is nor how to get it.

After two incidents (one just a bit lusty, the other bordering on a bit off) it is decided by the meddling crones and village busybodies to send Grazia off to a sanatorium in Milan, which might as well be Mars. She will have no part of this and her 13-year-old son hides her in a secluded cave. Her ensuing escape, seclusion and discovery offer us some more gorgeous imagery and displays the motherly bonding quite well. Yes, the imagery does go a bit down the obvious, biblical, redemptive female roads, but it well handled. Water, which has played quite a large role in the director's concept, stars in a few more scenes. It also features in the film's ending, which is spiritual, gorgeous and inconclusive in the same breadth. Love and human devotion may win, but this gal is not going to be packing sardines for much longer!

The movie, considering the almost rudimentary story line, is incredibly rich. The smallest characters are well defined and there is wonderful juxtaposition between formal Italian and the coarse regional dialect. Much of the cast is so natural you could believe them to be locals. The essence of life in such a village is well captured and the relationships within a family are well explored as well. And there is enough of the magical landscape of the place to make you want to board the next Alitalia jet. For a visit, that is.

In a small Italian fishing village, the community is very close knit and gossip starts easily about anyone who upsets the status quo. So it is that the free-spirited ways of Grazia make her stand out from the other women in the village who are married to the fishermen and keep their children. As she continues to set tongues wagging and frustrating her husband as a result, Pietro starts to think that perhaps the time is right for her to see a specialist to treat her and, if necessary, section her. Getting wind of her fate, Grazia heads off and is taken to a hiding place by her son Pasquale in the rocks above the beach.

Those looking for a plot that is as strong as I have suggested would do well to just watch the final 30 minutes of this film because it is only then that this storyline is brought out. When it does eventually come, it is interesting and it builds on the things that have been done in the first hour in regards subtexts and relationship dynamics but I have to mention the fact that, for many viewers, the first hour does have the potential to drag and seem irrelevant. To some extent I did fall into this camp, because I thought that the subtexts had been well enough developed before the hour mark and that this aspect could have been worked into a story better. However it still manages to set up the downside of small village life – a world where women are seen as lesser (even little brothers boss around older sisters), men are the all and even minor things can spark off gossip and rumours; it is a place that flies in stark contrast to the beautiful scenery and idyllic setting that the director shows us. This presentation does establish the final third well and, although it does need some patience, it does work very well.

It may be used as a contrast with the people but the direction is very impressive in terms of use of scenery and the framing of shots; it is very beautiful at times and it does help to highlight the disparity between the setting and the society. Golino is pretty good in the lead role – pretty and free enough to convince as a character but perhaps a bit too young looking to have had so many kids of such ages; she does look a bit like a movie producer's idea of what an Italian mother of three looks like. Casisa is good but he seems to have brought out a strange semi-sexual chemistry with Golino; if this was deliberate then it I'm not sure why, maybe I was just seeing something that wasn't there. Amato is effective as the husband – he seems to be frustrated not by his wife but by what others see in his wife; in this regard he fits the bill perfectly.

Overall this is an enjoyable film but it is not perfect and viewers should be prepared for the fact that the "plot" comes out almost reluctantly in the final third of the movie. Up till this time we have a thematic exploration of village life that is interesting but does require a bit of forgiving patience because it could easily have been done in less time or interwoven with a tighter story.

Emanuele Crialese's `Respiro' reminds me of Woody Allen's film, `Hollywood Ending', where a movie director makes a movie so bad, only the French would love it. While Allen's film is fictional, the French still gave "Respiro" the Critic's Week Prize at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. I bet Woody had a chuckle over this one.

The basis for the movie, `Respiro', comes from a legend told on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, where a young mother who behaved outside the rules of the small community, was thought to be insane, and thus ostracized by the townspeople. One day, she disappeared, leaving only her clothes on the beach. The community was left feeling guilty for having driven the woman to suicide, but the force of prayers brought her back to life from the sea, where she returned to normal life with her family.

The main problems with `Respiro' the film, are two-fold: first, the mother, played by Valeria Golino (whose film debut was along side Tom Cruise in `Rain Man'), seemed incongruent to the intent of the legend, which intended to portray the woman as simply out of line with social norms. In the film, however, she is actually psychiatrically ill. This critical point changes our perception of the townspeople's attempt to help her – rather than they're seeming conformist and unjust in their attempts to help her, they actually seemed genuine and authentic. This very fact discredits almost the entire point of the film. The only left to keep it together are the character portrayals themselves. But here, the director fails again, but much like the way Allen satirized in his film, `Hollywood Ending': it's a case of the Emperor's New Clothes: none of the main characters have any depth or meaning (aside from one of the mother's young sons), but the director tells you they do, so those who awarded this film the Critic's Week Prize, seemed to see something that just wasn't there.

Other problems with the film make it even less interesting, and by consequence, even more pretentious: The director intended to keep dialog extremely brief, but failed to replace their communication with anything else to portray character, mood, or even a sense of purpose. It seemed to be a series of scenes that were intended to be interpreted as `artful' in their abstraction and symbolism, but the director just assumed the audience would accept it because he told us to.

The closest thing to compare this movie with would be `Il Postino', the Italian film about the romantic postman who writes love poems to a woman to win her love. That film had all of the features that `Respiro' attempted, but Postino had warm and interesting characters, a meaningful and motivated plotline, and didn't mind portraying a cute Italian island for the beautifully romantic place that it is.

In the end, `Respiro' didn't move me at all, but if it's going to win film awards at Cannes, I'll give the credit more to Woody Allen, who seems to have an insight into those who think they know what a good artsy film is all about.

RESPIRO is a lovely and intriguing film set on the lonely Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, between Sicily and Tunisia. The main character is Grazia, played by the marvelously beautiful Valeria Golino. She is a mother with a few problems connecting with reality, a wayward independent spirit who attracts the ire of the islanders, especially the women who view her almost as a witch and her husband Pietro (Vincenzo Amato) who is at his wit's end. It is a theme it shares in common with Tornatore's MALENA, made in 2000.

Grazia has three children: a lovely daughter who is attracted to and attracted by a policeman from the mainland, and two adoring sons, whose affection is overtly and uncomfortably oedipal at times. They spend much of their energies comforting their mom, defending her against verbal attacks, supplying her with food when she goes off into hiding from those who want to send her to Milan for treatment, which, in truth, she probably could use. The rest of the time they are chasing birds, hanging out on the main drag with the girls and other friends. Pantsing each other on the beach seems to have become one of the island's most common sporting activities among the young.

What I like most about the movie, besides the appealing scenery, was the interrelations of the characters, the humor, petty gossips, the impromptu emotional outbursts, the displays of maternal and filial affection. The two boys are tremendous: the older Pasquale (Francesco Casisa) is the more mature of the two. The younger Filippo (Filippo Pucillo) has an unregulated diarrhea mouth filled with hilarious and inspired ravings, often without sense. His rant against the busybody women is a treasure, as is his little-brother-as-big-brother protectiveness of his sister from the policeman-friend. The boy embodies an epic Italianate inflammability far beyond his years.

The mysterious end evocative ending, in which Grazia, believed drowned, emerges from the water's depths on Saint Bartolo's Day, is quite beautifully conceived. Fine too are the musical score by John Surman, and the precise and suggestive direction by Emanuele Crialese. I enjoyed this film so much I went to see it several times.