La sapienza

A middle aged architect and his disinterested wife take a break from their work and travel to Italy to reconnect with each other and their passions. They stumble upon an ambitious brother and sister, then respectively pair off and discovers what the young have to teach them. It studies the pain of the distance between past and present as they are the same age as their children would be. Eugene Green's idiosyncratic style immediately reminds you of the chilliness of Jacques Tati and the formalities of Wes Anderson. The characters don't exchange looks and move very rigidly, like some kind of concept theatre. They talk directly to the camera, avoiding each other. It aptly shows the disconnect they feel, but at the expense of an incredibly stilted film. Unfortunately, and while it tries for satire and wry humour with the bloated egos of its characters, the film doesn't really facilitate the joke. It could've benefited from a soundtrack rather than silence to lighten the mood.

While the characters and the film are quite pompous in their conquest; their desires, relationships and conflicts do feel organically realised in the script. The film is a robotic essay about humanity, passion, religion and happiness, full of exposition as opposed to drama. That said, it's still very interesting. It argues the purpose of grand architecture – how it's a space to be free, a space for light to enter, and that light facilitates knowledge. It's an argument between the wisdom of youth and wisdom of experience, though obvious results. With a film about an architect, you can expect great production design and it does deliver, complimented with detailed costume design, captured with its appropriately bright cinematography. But with its plodding pace, ego, and lack of emotional resonance outside of tragic revelations, it's a difficult film to feel satisfied with, though it harbours valid insights.

7/10

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This is an excellent film. I look forward to seeing it a second time as there is so much to absorb/think about. What is unique is that the director chose to not develop the plot in a traditional manner. It is somewhat of a cross between a drama and a documentary. The present day characters serve to help us understand what the director wants to convey. The rogerebert.com review and an article and review on the New York Times site are useful to read before watching the film.

La Sapienza is a film about having knowledge about the past and the present, about people and relationships, and places to achieve a better, satisfying life. It is not accident that it is about knowledge as the Italian word Sapienza derives from the Italian verb sapere, to know.

La Sapienza (2014) is a French movie, written and directed by Eugène Green. (Note that Green, despite the accent over the e in his name, is American, not French.)

This movie doesn't fit into a pattern. It's about alienation between husband and wife, it's about Italian Baroque architecture, and it's about love. The problem in reviewing the film is that all these matters are presented to us in very unusual ways.

The person who introduced the movie pointed out the influence of Bresson on Green's work. I thought that it was closer to Antonioni or possibly Ozu. Actually, it's not that close to any other director whose films I've seen.

Fabrizio Rongione portrays Alexandre Schmidt, an architect at the height of success. However, he's burned out, especially because his plan for a model housing unit in a rural village is met with a counter proposal to cement everything over and just put in windowsills with flower pots on them.

His wife, Aliénor (Christelle Prot Landman) says she's a "psychologist, psychoanalyst, and sociologist." She appears to work for a nonprofit organization (I think) that cares about community well being. (There's a short scene where she's describing the wretched circumstances in an--I believe--Algerian neighborhood, and she's met with rude humor rather than understanding.)

It's had to tell whether Alexandre and Aliénor still love one another. In their scenes together, they stare at the camera, not at each other, and barely talk.

Alexandre decides to travel to Italy to revive his interest in the Baroque Italian architect Borromini. Aliénor travels with him. In Italy, they meet a brother and sister: Goffredo (Ludovico Succio) and Lavinia (Arianna Nastro). Goffredo wants to become an architect. Lavinia suffers from a "neuologic disorder." (Never specified, and not clear from the plot.)

In a surprise turn of events, Aliénor stays behind to be with Lavinia, and Alexandre travels with Goffredo to Rome to observe Borromini's work.

I can't reveal more of the plot. What I can do is say that this is a quiet film, but never boring. There's no violence, no sex, and no bizarre occurrences. One scene appears to flow into the next almost seamlessly. It's not a good movie if you want action, but it will work if you relax and watch the plot of the film unfold.

I was particularly impressed by the acting of Christelle Prot Landman, an actress whose work I've never seen before. She has a quiet presence that fits the part perfectly. She reminds me of Fannie Ardant in the movie Colonel Chabert. When asked what she is like, the answer is "Superb."

We saw this movie at the wonderful Dryden Theatre in Rochester's George Eastman Museum. It won't work as well on a small screen--because of the architecture--but it's worth seeing in any way you can. It's different, and it's fascinating.

... but at the end it let me cold according to the initial aesthetic and methaphoric espectatives.

Love is difficult enough in any language and art form, so layer a French film in a Swiss-Italian setting (Ticino is in southern Switzerland) with an architecture motif, and you have an insight into what makes it all work—light. La Sapienza will indeed make you wise if it doesn't confound you with its arty dialogue.

Most of the screenplay is poignantly presented with slow theatricality, sometimes as if the characters were in a documentary talking directly into the camera. But American-French writer-director Eugene Green brings powerful emotions out of his four principals even when they speak without an ounce of naturalism. Love is in the words aided by the light.

The middle-aged architect, Alexandre (Fabrizio Rongione) is visiting Ticino to study the work of 17th century Baroque architect Francesco Borromini and to be inspired. The charming Bernini would have been a better inspiration than the melancholic Borromini, but, hey, our architect captures a good vibe no matter.

His wife, Alienore (Christelle Prot), a group psychoanalyst, loves the introverted scholar even dispelling the overtures of a very young architect, Goffredo (Ludovico Succio), the purveyor of the light philosophy to her and her husband. Completing the foursome is Goffredo's pre-Raphaelite-like sister, Lavinia (Arianna Nastro), who gives Alienore more strength to love and live than she already has.

Architecture becomes more than enveloping space as it provides the angle of light to incite true love. Unsurprisingly, the loving brother and sister (close to too loving) have much to teach about the purity of love and the love of architecture. La Sapienza is a moving tone poem, albeit eccentric in dialogue and light on conflict.

In contrast with Noah Baumbach's comedy, While We're Young, which has a younger couple confounding the adults, La Sapienza is witty and accessible, entertaining and underplayed. A wise summer choice in a spectacular but droll European setting. Light even if it sounds heavy under my keystrokes.