Corpo celeste

I finally caught up with Alice Rohrwacher's filmography and watched her debut feature, «Corpo celeste», made nine years ago and for which she won several awards as new director and for best first film. Since then, we have seen a talented filmmaker who is maturing with outstanding works, as «Le meraviglie»" (story of a family that owns an apiary) and «Lazzaro felice» (portrait of an immensely good-natured young man).

This is a subtle drama about growing up and enlightenment, about Marta (Yile Yara Vianello), a beautiful and sensitive girl who becomes a nubile adolescent, during the summer when she is going to receive the sacrament of confirmation in the Catholic church. Marta has just arrived from Switzerland to Reggio di Calabria, an Italian city controlled by the mafia, and she does not find it easy to fit into a small-town congregation of sanctimonious men and women with apocalyptic hearts, a bit silly peers and Don Mario, the parish priest who leads a double life: it is election time and he is seeking a promotion in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. To round things up, add Santa, his housekeeper and Sunday school teacher, who secretly loves him; and, on the personal side, Marta's family picture, made up of a single mother and three daughters, which Rohrwacher portrays as a vivid, volatile and affectionate nest.

Spaces and environments are always special in Rohrwacher's films and, besides her documentaries, here is a seed: we have seen many rugged European villages, carved out of mountains, between ascending curves, with rustic houses crowded one on top of the other, but the brief scenes in which the director's camera enters a house and a church in ruins, it is enough to reveal the desolation of the place; and, in the end, the film opens up (not closes, for it is not a "denouement", the film does not "untie plot knots", but fluently runs through emotions, situations and demonstrations) when Marta unexpectedly arrives to the sea, which, in the characters' fantasies, is alluded as a place of escape and repose.

A very good film, «Corpo celeste» is a preview of Alice Rohrwacher's next two major works, which I hope is enjoyed by those persons who love good cinema from all over the world.

This is the movie which can be discuss for years to come. A young pre-adolescent girl from Switzerland, where there is freedom of religion, who goes to Catholic dominated Italy to live with her Mother and older Sister who pesters her. Imagine the cultural shock of a contrast country. Add to this, the coming of adolescent age with its confusion and rebellion. Survival is challenging despite the indoctrination of a religious sense to keep people living within the teachings of the church. One sees a battle between moral values and self preservation. Plus, the struggle of an innocent child who wants to live the right way in a world that acts on human self righteousness and desires. This film will take you on a ride which leaves you in a hopeless state of not knowing who to believe or what to believe. Yet, among all the world lust, hypocritical situations, and unfairness... we can survive. We are a miracle. Especially when we put our faith in spiritual understanding. A thought provoking film which will question your own beliefs and understanding.

Having been brought up a Catholic, this evoked many familiar feelings in me and will probably resonate for quite some time.

Peopled with some very well-observed supporting characters - such as the Sunday School teacher, the Priest, and the visiting cardinal's team, it's clear how mysoginistic the whole structure remains, even as they struggle to maintain relevance in the modern world.

The girl at the centre of all this handles her role very well, I think, balancing her rebelliousness with her understandable feelings of dislocation in a new country with new surroundings and cultural (and religious) expectations, plus puberty. One feels that she has the inner strength to survive, despite circumstances so, despite being depressed that things remain like this, there is hope.

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.

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.