Un viaggio chiamato amore

I saw this film last night. The scene's involving Sibilla Alaramo's youth were the best: her mother's madness and the brutal rape she was forced to endure at the hands of her future husband. Sibilla was, in Italy, a controversial novelist who challenged the paternalism of her day. That she had sexual relations with men other than her husband is something that Dino Campana cannot really forgive her for. His madness, though real, comes across as a bit self-indulgent. She seems the stronger, more depthful person: in love with a talented madman; having to survive as an independent women when this idea was frowned upon (it still is, to some extent).

Could you imagine Michele Placido -the famous actor of "LA PIOVRA", a succesfull mafia TV serie- shooting a film about a poet's life, well this is the case and the result is remarkable.

Placido decided bravely to use a non commercial theme and describe deeply the life of an early 20th century poet, considered as a genius by all his colleagues. He is well acted by Stefano Accorsi, one of the latest generation Italian actors, well known after the succesfull blockbuster: L'Ultimo Bacio; he has a discontinuous and peaceless love story with Laura Morante, who in the film is a "well" known high class lady in the poetry male circles. The relation is well far to be a quiet one also because he starts to have more and more internal conflicts with himself. Laura Morante is splendid in her role, a nice middle age lady who has an unforgettable past with a family that finally she leaves to follow inconditionally his Poet friend. The film is well located in the Italy of those years and the atmosphere is perfect. The story can not finish in a different way than in a mental hospital.

Michele Placido seems to debate with us about the real meaning of poetry (or more in general arts) and the difficulties for a Poet (or an art man) to see life as everybody does in a standard way. However the film has certain moments where you can notice a lack of continuity in the story but the overall result is good.

Rating: 6/10

The movie is about the ardent love story between the brilliant poet Dino Campana and the well known writer Sibilla Aleramo.

The Cultural background and atmosphere is the beginning of the 20th century with its revolutionary content relating sentimental life, human relationships, the new attitude of women and men, the refusal of the so called conformism and so on. And from this point of view I got the impression that the movie succeeded.

What I did not appreciate is the description of the development of the two main characters' love. As a matter of fact there is no description or explanation of what happened to Sibilla Aleramo's or Dino Campana's mind, heart, what where their reflections. You see the story of their strong love, but you do not understand the deep motivation of this passion, you feel you remain of the surface...

I think the movie could have been better.

It is hard to see a film, where everything is tragic, cruel and the director abuses of sex scenes. The argument could be interesting, even a real one, but the film only discharges suffering, unhappy facts, tough relationship between a man and a woman. Regarding sex scenes one may guess that the director wanted to show them to demonstrate the cruelty of the man, but not all in our lives is misery and misunderstanding. In any case, this film failed to balance the scenes and went in one direction.

No doubt, we are in the presence of a magnificent director, I picked this movie after seeing "Romanzo criminale", also directed by Michele Placido and where he shows again his portentous talent for film directing. He moves the actors so smoothly and gets top performances from them as very few directors are able to do. From the very beginning the art direction is superb, the recreation of the period impeccable and so are the costumes and props.

We seem to be back in 1910. The acting is so good that it's impossible to imagine anybody doing it better. The main characters, tormented --both of them-- to the point of paranoia, reach insufferable mental torture and in her case, tremendous blows --battered woman anyone?-- being pushed, pulled, raped, from the front, from the back, from any possible angle that the human body permits the act. Crushed against the walls, thrown with violence against the floor --Ouch! mind that tiled floor, it's very hard!-- to the extent that one wonders why she doesn't finally looked like the "Bride of Frankestein".

In the 90s she could have gone to Brazil, to Doctor Pitanguy, for some plastic surgery to remove all the bruises gotten in those agitated physical encounters, but in the 1910s I suppose she could only get some ointments and resign herself to the condition of a battered woman (battered in this case is a very light understatement). It's extremely difficult to understand her love --passionate at that-- for this crazy man that will end his days in a madhouse for something like 20 years, and where he will eventually die. They say that "love is blind", well, this case would be the perfect example for that saying.

She was a successful writer in Italy at that time --the story is a true story-- a splendid looking woman (at least the actress, I never saw a picture of the real writer), talented, productive, organized, and she goes and falls for this bum! Yes, he was a genius of a poet and maybe the best poet at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century in Italy, but who cares!! that's all right for movies and stuff, but in real life who needs that kind of treatment!! Talking about treatments, the one she received for her arthritis seems to be so terrifying for our modern view of medicine that not even cows are treated that way nowadays.

The photography is very dark, full of shadows, matching the mental state of our couple, absolutely exquisite, so is the lighting and the color, that gives such a good old fashion feeling to every scene. Not to be missed is the scene where we are offered a total nude view of Stefano Accorsi with his back to the camera where we can appreciate why -- well, the physical part counts too-- she was so hot about his body. The music by Morricone, sensational. An engrossing film, if you don't mind the very seriousness of its theme.