Divorzio all'italiana

DIVORCE Italian STYLE is a comedy drama about love pains and problems with laws.

An impoverished Sicilian nobleman is married with an unattractive but devoted wife. However, he is in love with his, a much younger and attractive, cousin. He lives, besides his wife, with his elderly parents, his spinster sister and her boyfriend. The divorce was illegal in Italy at that time. He has, unsuccessfully, tried to move away from his wife. Perhaps he will try to kill his wife?! A young cousin is so beautiful. He has a very little time to come up with something. A local story of a woman who killed her husband in a rage of jealousy has gave him a great idea...

This satirical farce, which includes an affair in a marriage, love for a minor girl and a murder of honor is, in spite of moral transgressions, a very interesting film. Mr. Germi has made a series of wonderful plots, in which he has, in a satirical manner, criticized laws in the Italian society. He has, very imaginatively, combined fantasies with reality. Therefore, the malicious actions of the main protagonist seem quite charming. A happy ending is the culmination of irony.

Scenery and music completely correspond with love pains in this film. Characterization is very good.

Marcello Mastroianni as Ferdinando Cefalù is a sympathetic and cunning man at the same time. He, perhaps, goes through a midlife crisis. However, his ambitions and plans, which he has prepared with a large dose of elegance and serenity, are quite childish. His character is filled with pathos, despair and longing. Mr. Mastroianni has offered an excellent performance, which is the foundation of a top class entertainment in this film.

His support are Daniela Rocca (Rosalia Cefalù) as his boring wife, Stefania Sandrelli (Angela) as his passion, lust and love and Leopoldo Trieste as Carmelo Patanè as his "salvation".

This is a very entertaining movie about love torments and...still "natural laws".

Definitely a classic film, but not just an Italian classic! "Divorzio all'italiana" centers itself around Ferdinando Cefalù (Mastroianni), a 37 year old baron in a small town. Although he's a baron, his life is not completely perfect as his father has squandered much of their money, and his extremely clingy wife Rosalia stands between him and the only thing he loves, his 16 year old cousin Angela. To add salt to the wound, 1960's Italy does not allow couples to divorce, which leads Ferdinando to seek desperate measures. After a town scandal erupts, when a woman murders her cheating husband to protect her honor, Ferdinando is inspired to set up his wife with a lover in order to kill her and "protect his honor." The rest of the movie chronicles Ferdinando's attempts to find someone who would fit the bill.

"Divorzio all'italiana" is a satirical look at Italian society and its seemingly backward laws which force people to do stupid things and its fallibility at justice. In its social commentary of Italian laws/society, Concini, Germi, and Giannetti (the writers) create well fitted, stereotypical characters that are much needed in order for the message of the film to get across. Ferdinando plays the evil nobleman, Rosalia as the annoying wife, Angela as the desirable secret teen lover, etc. The beauty of the story not only lies in it's scathingly funny humor, with Ferdinando's clever plotting and hallucinations of killing his wife, but also in its ability to transcend time. Nowadays there are no laws that forbid divorce in most societies, but even though that crucial point does not relate to modern audiences, the film is still able to conjure emotions for the characters' plight. Another great thing about the film, is the idea of a protagonist character with typically antagonist characteristics. Ferdinando is definitely a bad man, but the story plays with the audience in making them want Ferdinando to succeed in his plot. To add to the underlying theme of the film, the failure of Italian laws, is the theme of "justice" whether it be from the law or from a simple reversal of fate. Definitely watch the film up to the very end, as it closes with an ironic yet justified twist of fate for the characters involved.

DIVORCE Italian STYLE is one of the funniest films I've ever seen on the subject of how to dissolve a marriage--Italian style, of course. Seems those Italians have a way of forgiving murder if the spouse has cheated and is found in the act--which must give rise to some pretty unsavory stories in real life as well as here.

But however unpleasant the subject matter may seem, this is the merriest romp of a comedy I've come across in a long time. It's so artful in the way it gets inside the mind of the impoverished aristocrat (MARCELLO MASTROIANNI) living in palatial ruins in Sicily and desperately devising a way to get rid of his boring wife. He devises a plan that goes awry when "La Dolce Vita" comes to town and, with all the men in the village attending it, his wife takes that opportunity to run off with her lover.

It's a masterful job that Mastroianni does here, giving little signs of distress with a twitch of his mustache, a frown, a concentrated gaze--in other words, bewitched, bothered and bewildered as he contemplates how to go about getting rid of his freedom so he can pursue a young girl he's enamored of. All the events leading up to the final act are hilariously Italiano in style--those little devils knew how to take advantage of the judicial system.

Summing up: A sheer delight from beginning to end, thanks to a masterful job by Marcello Mastroianni in his Oscar-nominated role.

This movie got an Oscar for the script (among the others, by Pietro Germi, the gifted director). However, the real importance of this movie can be demonstrated by saying that an entire genre, "la commedia all'italiana" (Comedy, Italian style) is named after this movie.

A major issue of this genre is to make fun of our traditions and culture (I am Italian) despite the radical changes our Country was having during those years ('60s, '70s).

The main issue of Neo-realism (Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti) was to describe the tragic reality of miserable lives after the catastrophic WWII. Then the Italian economic boom of the '50s drove Italy into modernity and wellness. Commedia all'italiana wanted to remind us that despite this modernity we are always the same Italians we were before, with all our intelligence but also with all our defects.

"Divorce, Italian Style" is set in the most 'conservative' place of Italy of that time, where traditions like family honor were still predominant despite all modernity. In the first shots of the movie we see an environment suffocated by the heat of the Sicilian climate. People spend part of the day in their apartments waiting for the cool evening. This motionless environment is highly metaphoric, as it shows that nothing really changes in this land, suffocated by the weight of old traditions. Probably this is not so true today, but at that time certainly was.

However, don't be scared by this introduction. The movie is FUN and it turns into a fast-paced rhythm shortly.

The protagonist loves his cousin and wants to marry her, but he is already married. So he plans to murder the wife, pretending to do that for a 'legitimate' defence of honor. What is amazing is that all the village, all the people in the movie support murder for the honor of the family. They even induce him to kill. And what is sad, is that the law at that time was really soft for those types of murders.

To summarize this movie has these characteristics: 1) VERY FUN. You can't stop laughing even if the script is tragic (this is a characteristic of masterpieces) 2) WELL ACTED: Marcello Mastroianni gives one of his best performances. Stefania Sandrelli is beautiful as ever, Marcello's wife is ugly and a nuisance as her role imposes, and Leopoldo Trieste is another great actor of Italian cinema.

3) WONDERFUL STORY: the script won the Oscar and it is truly very intelligent 4) SOCIALLY COMMITTED: it is an accusation of a wrong law that supports a wrong tradition (the law was changed shortly after).

I give this masterpiece a 10 out of 10, and I strongly recommend it to everyone.

This is definitely one of the best Italian comedies ever made, a movie you can watch over and over again... Mastroianni gives an excellent performance as an impoverished Sicilian aristocrat determined to get a divorce from his wife. There is only one complication - divorce is illegal in Italy at the time. However, there is also a law that justifies the killing of a wife if she is caught during an act of adultery. As with most others Germi's films, this one is a unique mix of situational comedy and social drama. Highly recommended.