Respiro

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.

The movie gives us a vivid and ruthless description of the odyssey of a rebel housewife, described with passionate and emotional involvement without giving vent to any sort of conceptualism. This touching story has been inspired by the legend of a mysterious woman who disappeared a long time ago in Lampedusa (an island in the sea of Sicily, the southern point of Europe.). Grazia, the catalyst character of the story, a restless married woman of unusual habits, is considered a nut, an irresponsible person who can't participate fully in the life of society, being forced into total imagination. If it hadn't been for an out-of-date husband, maybe she would have turned her beauty to better account.

Unable to stifle her feelings and to bear the heavy burden of age-old customs, she blows a fuse, ready to abandon home, land and property to flee into the unknown. As the intolerant member of an archaic fishermen community whose behavior leaves much to be desired, not tuned to her same emotional wavelength, not contaminated by the standardization of the modern society, she's quite resolved to preserve every traditional values and social structures, without leaving space for human relationships not predetermined by time-honored customs faithfully handed on from father to son. In this forgotten land where the younger brothers strive to safeguard the reputation of their mothers, the alienated Grazia, (played by a touching and wonderful Valeria Golino), generally considered to be either a very wretched woman or, even worse, a lunatic one, is eager to undertake a journey towards the complete fulfillment of her hopes, yearning for the sight of her deep blue sea, complying with her inner desire for emancipation. In her unremitting efforts to achieve ultimate freedom, the same freedom bestowed by her upon the dogs waiting to be slaughtered, she strives to get over her existential dimension of illness, feeling like a fish out of water, with fear in her eyes, eager to feel the warm embrace of the sea, restored to a sort of primitive amniotic fluid and changing her uneasy feelings into unlimited pleasure.

The movie shows us the epos of a picturesque island where even the children's games reflect the savage nature of the surrounding environment. To be considered at the same time the celebration of a land and of rough people stubbornly bound together by a close friendship without any will to open up new horizons, conforming to precise religious rules (Our Lady's statue brought down the sounding-depth), careful not to mistake the will of sound emancipation for the abolition of every moral scruples. Decided not to be corrupted by vices of more developed social strata.

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.

This movie is a good example of showing that it is possible to produce high quality films without spending too much. The scenario is very well written and characters are well chosen. Every single person fits their role very well that I couldn't help thinking that such a village really exists. Especially Grazia and her younger son are acting very well. The younger son is so natural and has great talent. As for the Grazia, she is showing the character of a caring and sometimes crazy mother with her gestures and talks. The landscape in the film makes you feel like going holiday in the Mediterranean. The sea, sky and the landscape are absolutely beautiful. After seeing this film, I have realized that the rural lives by the sea in many countries are similar, the differences are in the languages, but the feelings are same.

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.