Io la conoscevo bene

There is a scene from I Knew Her Well between Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli) and The Writer (Joachim Fuchsberger) that says a lot about the film:

The Writer: "Trouble is, she likes everything. She's always happy. She desires nothing, envies no one, is curious about nothing. You can't surprise her. She doesn't notice the humiliations, though they happen to her every day. It all rolls off her back like some waterproof material. Zero ambition. No moral code. Not even a whore's love of money. Yesterday and tomorrow don't exist for her. Even living for today would mean too much planning, so she lives for the moment. Sunbathing, listening to records, and dancing are her sole activities. The rest of the time she's mercurial and capricious, always needing brief new encounters with anyone at all... just never with herself."

Adriana: "I'm Milena, right? Is that what I'm like? Some sort of dimwit?"

The Writer: "On the contrary. You may be the wisest of all."

I couldn't encapsulate the brilliance of this incredibly well directed character essay any better.

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.

"She's always happy. She desires nothing, envies no one, is curious about nothing. You can't surprise her. She doesn't notice the humiliations, though they happen to her every day. It all rolls off her back like some waterproof material. Yesterday and tomorrow don't exist for her. Even living for today would mean too much planning, so she lives for the moment."

ADRIANA: "Is that what I'm like? Some sort of dimwit?"

"On the contrary, you may be the wisest of all."

The irony of this pivotal scene is that even this seemingly accurate observation of the character Andrianna barely scratches the surface. Ultimately nobody knows her well, not even the audience, until the final few minutes of the film when we realize we missed something all along. Then we go back and watch the film again and really get to know her.

"I knew her well" is a film from Italy's powerful cinematic renaissance of the 1960s alongside landmarks like Antonioni's "L'Avventura" ("The Adventure"), Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" ("The Easy Life"), and Risi's "Il Sorpasso" (coincidentally, "The Easy Life"). Of those 3 comparisons it's most similar to "Il Sorpasso" in the way it takes the form of a breezy, episodic comedy. In fact "I knew her well" is almost like a road movie itself, except that everything happens in the vicinity of Rome, and instead of the typical windblown convertible used in all road movies Adriana drives a comically tiny clown car. As with the other films, here we get the backdrop of Italy's postwar economic prosperity to immerse us in an almost surreal fantasy world where people seem to have no obligations other than having a good time. But as with all these great films, there's a haunting spectre of what may lie outside, or in this case, behind the carefree façade.

Adriana (played by the wonderfully expressive and cute as a button Stefania Sandrelli) is an aspiring actress with a cheerful disposition like a 1960s Italian Amélie. She's unstoppable and nothing seems to get her down. Even when she is jilted by a lover and left with a large hotel bill, she admires him for his ingenuity and ultimately laughs as she hopes he'll elude the police. As my opening quote implies, she doesn't seem to notice the humiliations though they happen to her every day. And in that respect, we the audience are lulled into an entertaining romp about the catastrophe of life even though in a parallel universe a Neorealist director like De Sica ("Bicycle Thieves") would make us feel the stab of each humiliation. But no, here we become Adriana. We quickly adopt the attitude that life is too short to dwell on the past, or the future, or anything. Right?

Don't expect a plot because this is mostly a series of vignettes over the course of a few days (? We can't be sure as events are deliberately fragmented) in Adriana's life. Around 20 vignettes in total--ok, 19, but I didn't want to seem like a nerd for counting--are presented to us, each full of its own magic. My favorite is a wonderful scene where she befriends a slow-witted but humorous boxer who has just suffered a humiliating defeat in the ring and jokes about his opponent being smart to pick a weak opponent. (See the parallel between him and Andrianna?)

Music plays significantly in this film as Adrianna spends most of her free time dancing, singing and listening to an old record player which she has to kick to make it work. As the music becomes more prominent, we realize that, if anything, the music is the key to "knowing her well". Don't miss the unforgettable final 10 min sequence featuring Gilbert Becaud's "Toi".

A perfectly written, perfectly shot, and perfectly titled film, "I knew her well" rings of the famous line in Hamlet where the prince finds the bones of his childhood pal, the court jester Yorick "of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy ... Now get you to my lady's chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick..."

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.