Pasqualino Settebellezze

1975
VM14
1h 56min

VALUTAZIONE IMDb

7,7/10

6848

LA TUA VALUTAZIONE

Giancarlo Giannini in Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975)

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Comedy Drama War

La difesa dell'onore, un valore forte nella società napoletana, e i suoi effetti sulla vita di Pasquale Frafuso.La difesa dell'onore, un valore forte nella società napoletana, e i suoi effetti sulla vita di Pasquale Frafuso.La difesa dell'onore, un valore forte nella società napoletana, e i suoi effetti sulla vita di Pasquale Frafuso.

Vedi le informazioni sulla produzione su IMDbPro

VALUTAZIONE IMDb

7,7/10

6848

LA TUA VALUTAZIONE

Vedi le informazioni sulla produzione su IMDbPro

Candidato a 4 Oscar
- 2 vittorie e 9 candidature totali

Carolina
(as Francesca Marciani)

Mario Conti

Totonno

Barbara Valmorin

The Prison Camp Commandant's Secretary

Emilio Salvatore

Aristide Caporale

Madman
(as Aristide Caporali)

Pasquale Vitiello

Luciano Foti

Kapo
(non citato nei titoli originali)

Veriano Ginesi

Smoking Patient in Aversa
(non citato nei titoli originali)

Regia
- Lina Wertmüller
Sceneggiatura
- Lina Wertmüller
Tutti gli interpreti e le troupe
Produzione, botteghino e altro su IMDbPro

Recensioni degli utenti54

7,76.8K

Recensioni in evidenza

7apzijlstra

tragic farce?

Editing, acting, lighting, pacing, they're all very good. The mix of genres makes me wonder. That something funny if not farcical is mixed in with the tragedy of WWII doesn't sit well with me, although I know that some will say that it is the crux. The best part of the movie was perhaps the introduction, the Oh, Yeah part. The scene wherein the two deserters come upon the mass execution has a beautifully grim and nightmarishly terrifying aspect. The whole movie has something of a bad dream, not in the least because of the seemingly realistic scenes which never could have happened and the use of black and white scenes that convey a sense that we have to do with a documentary. Surely, the director is, as Ingmar Bergman said, the magician, and if so, if the audience is being set up, it's only part of the show.

10tm-22

It's one matter not being innocent -- it's another being a whore

Seven Beauties is a masterpiece that holds up as well now as it did 20 years ago. Pasqualino is a character whose life is shaped by a shallow, macho, code of honor. He continually swears to live his life by this code and to force the family to live up to this standard. He is broken hearted when he must abandon his "man of honor" image in order to escape hanging.

Without his standards, miserable as they were, Pasqualino survives by instinct alone. His character contrasts with the people that he meets when he is interred in a concentration camp. Most of the time he is so consumed by a his desire to live that he can't focus on or misunderstands the important things they try to tell him.

Although this sounds like a very dour movie, it is saved by the way Lina Wertmuller constructs the story. It is a non-linear narrative, with a word or phrase triggering a flash back for Pasqualino.

The music is extraordinary. The concentration camp scenes are horrifying (with Wagner opera as the musical theme) and the scenes set in Naples are sunny and beautiful but not overblown. You see the frayed edges of a poor town, although they're bathed in the mediteranean sunshine.

Pasqualino sums it up best when he says, "A rotten comedy, a lousy farce . .. called living." Lina Wertmueller made a wonderful comedy, a masterful farce . . . called Pasqualino Settebellezze.

10tomrito

One of the ten best movies of all time.

I wish you could put this movie under the English title of Seven Beauties so it would be more accessible to people. This is one of the best movies ever made and more people should see it. I was in a state of awe from beginning to end. How could someone make a movie like this? It is hard for Americans to understand this kind of existence because we never have had to experience anything like it. Lina Wertmuller has made a movie about the human condition that our ancestors fought to protect us from having to face. If you want light-hearted entertainment, stay away, but if you want to see just what it took to live through the horror of war, you must see this movie.

9Oblomov_81

Captivating parable about the evils of Nazism

Lina Wertmuller had a brief moment in the spotlight back in the mid-seventies, mostly due to the impact of three of her films: "Love and Anarchy," "Swept Away," and "Seven Beauties." Although her career took a nose-dive shortly thereafter, "Seven Beauties" still stands as her best film, and also one of the best films of its era.

Giancarlo Giannini gives a compelling and hilarious performance as Pasqualino Settebellezze, an Italian hood who is sent to prison after killing his sister's lover. He fakes insanity, gets sent to an institution, escapes by joining the military, deserts, gets caught, and is put in a concentration camp. There, he seduces his grotesque female camp commander in order to survive. Giannini makes his character wholly believable, and his presence on-screen (in nearly every scene) keeps the story going from one plot twist to the next. His character has a bumbling, comic presence to him, but also a certain amount of craft and sophistication.

Wertmuller creates a story that works both as slapstick and anti-war drama. Her direction is tight and controlled, and she doesn't flinch away from depicting the brutalities of Nazism. Parts of the film may seem like forerunners of the "gross-out" gags that have populated cinema in recent years, but these moments are actually used to show how the Nazis degraded ordinary innocents and demoralized the world around them. The most interesting aspect of the story is the way Wertmuller compares Hitler's tactics to those of the underground mafia; the Nazis, in the end, come off as hypocritical for persecuting Pasqualino for his crimes.

edcar47

brilliant character study

I am truly pleased to read all these positive comments about this movie. Even though the total comments are rather few in number they are all positive, which in itself is remarkable. I saw it when it first came to the theater and have loved it ever since. The movie hit on all cylinders for me in a way that probably no movie before or since could do. (Kazan's EAST OF EDEN comes close.) This is not an easy movie to like in that it is a Totally Focused Character Study about an individual who we meet for the first time in the movie. It is not a simple Genre movie that focuses on one aspect of life (crime, war, anti-war, comedy, romance, tragedy, coming of age, sex, survival etc.). This is a one-of-a-kind Character Study that asks you to follow the life of a human being (combining all aspects of life) as it unfolds before our eyes. And as there is justification for each of his sins (and they are legion) we cannot judge him too harshly, or at all. Also, because we initially like the character we become complicit in each one of his monstrous deeds and soon there is no turning back for either him or us. We can only continue going forward together, if only to see how it all ends. Oh Yeah. Perhaps that is what the OH YEAH Beat poem at the beginning is all about. That is the final irony- how the start of the movie and the end become one. At the end of the movie (or the true beginning of his life) Pasqualino becomes the person being mocked in the Oh Yeah poem of the opening scene. I think the reason everyone seems to like this movie is that the people who would not like or understand it knew instinctively within themselves to simply stay away. Or they walked out on it as soon as they realized this was not their kind of (genre) movie. Historical Note- I heard on the History Channel on a program about Naples during WWII that fully 30 percent of the women of Naples were prostitutes during the war. ed

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With this film, Lina Wertmüller became the first woman ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. The only other women to be so nominated are Jane Campion for Lezioni di piano (1993) and Il potere del cane (2021), Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation - L'amore tradotto (2003), Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2008), Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird (2017), Emerald Fennell for Una donna promettente (2020), Chloé Zhao for Nomadland (2020), Justine Triet for Anatomia di una caduta (2023) and Coralie Fargeat for The Substance (2024). Bigelow won first, followed 11 years later by Zhao, while Campion finally won hers the year after.

Blooper
Seven minutes in, when Pasqualino sees civilians being cut down with machine-gun fire, there is no blood spray when they're shot and subsequently no blood on any of the corpses.

Citazioni
Narrator: The ones who don't enjoy themselves, even when they laugh. Oh yeah. The ones who worship the corporate image, not knowing that they work for someone else. Oh yeah. The ones who should have been shot in the cradle... Pow! Oh yeah. The ones who say 'Follow me to success, but kill me if I fail... so to speak.' Oh yeah. The ones who say we Italians are the greatest he-men on earth. Oh yeah. The ones who are noble Romans, the ones who say 'That's for me,' the ones who say 'You know what I mean.' Oh yeah. The ones who vote for the right because they're fed up with strikes. Oh yeah. The ones who vote white in order not to get dirty. The ones who never get involved with politics. Oh yeah. The ones who say 'Be calm, calm.' The ones who still support the king. The ones who say 'Yes, sir.' Oh yeah. The ones who make love standing in their boots, and imagine they're in a luxurious bed. The ones who believe Christ is Santa Claus as a young man. Oh yeah. The ones who say 'Oh, what the hell.' The ones who were there. The ones who believe in everything, even in God. The ones who listen to the national anthem. Oh yeah. The ones who love their country. The ones who keep going, just to see how it will end. Oh yeah. The ones who are in garbage up to here. Oh yeah. The ones who sleep soundly, even with cancer. Oh yeah. The ones who, even now, don't believe the world is round. Oh yeah, oh yeah. The ones who are afraid of flying. Oh yeah. The ones who have never had a fatal accident. Oh yeah. The ones who have had one. The ones who, at a certain point in their lives, create a secret weapon, Christ. Oh yeah. The ones who are always standing at the bar. The ones who are always in Switzerland. The ones who started early, haven't arrived, and don't know they're not going to. Oh yeah. The ones who lose wars by the skin of their teeth. Oh yeah. The ones who say 'Everything is wrong here.' The ones who say 'Now let's all have a good laugh.' Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.