La sconosciuta

"The Unknown Woman" is such an intense film that don't even think about "having a good time" while going to see it. "Cinema Paradiso" shouldn't be your reference for this "dark" Tornatore film. This is not for having a good time! This is for witnessing the lives that you can hardly think someone lived. This is feeling the pain of injustice in your veins. This is feeling shame that you live in such a world and can't and won't be able to do anything to change it. This is heart breaking! This is being absorbed by a touching story that is beautifully told. This is what cinema is for. One can only say,"Bravo Tornatore"!

Irena (Kseniya Rappoport) is a mystery woman obsessed with getting the nanny job with a particular family. She bribes the building's manager to clean the common area. She befriends the family's nanny and then she even trips her down the stairs to her death. Valeria Adacher, her daughter Thea, and husband Donato have a secret safe in their apartment. Thea is pushed around at school and Irena uses unconventional measures to toughen her. In the continuing flashbacks, Irena is an Ukrainian prostitute who finds love with a young man. That past is never far from her mind and comes back to harass her.

This is a movie precious with its ultimate reveal. It does a great job creating some misdirections. It lasts a bit too long. The reveal should come sooner allowing a more compelling action thriller third act. It's a compelling mystery for the first hour. The sex slave montage does get repetitive and possibly reveals too much. This could be a more compelling thriller if it's tighter.

I did not know anything about the movie except that it was made by the director of Malena (a movie that I did not like that much except its images and story line). I had totally no expectations from this one and I sat wondering what is to come.

The story is about a Ukrainian girl Irina (Russian actress Kseniva Rappoport) who comes from a small village and has a lover who is a construction worker. Due to dreams of becoming rich and famous, she becomes a prostitute and is exploited by a pimp Muffa (Michele Placido), who kills the lover, sells off the newly born child of pregnant Irina and sadomizes & beats Irina in sex work. The movie is extremely mysterious with Irina's past unfolding with tits and bits of flashback while she works as a house maid for a small family – Valeria (Claudia Gerini), her husband Donato (Pierfrancesco Favino) and their daughter Tea (Clara Dossena) - in an Italian city. I won't tell you the whole story here and spoil the great viewing.

Famous Italian Director Giuseppe Tornatore directs this movie after six years of gap and comes out with a winner. The movie has its thrills, drama and emotions that keep the audience on the edge of the seat. There are some disturbing violent and sexual content in the movie.

Kseniva is so beautiful and acts brilliantly throughout – displaying the range of emotions that a few actresses get to enact in their entire career. Michele Placido as Muffa is scary and real mean. The stealer performance is by Clara as a 5 year old daughter who acts naturally. Claudi and Pierfrancesco are also good.

Giuseppe always extracts excellent cinematography and background musical score, so does he this time.

In the last 20 minutes, the movie looses its hold a bit but all in all it is a great movie viewing. I do not know Italian or the Dutch sub-titles – but good movies do not require local language to communicate and good directors are not restrictive with any aspects of constraining mediums of cinema.

That is the brilliance of classical form of movie making! (Stars 7.25 out of 10)

I need to clarify one thing before I begin this review. I am a man. I enjoy watching muscle cars hurdle through a race track, I could watch Die hard 2 any day of the week and I never had the urge to watch Desperate housewives/Sex and the city or anything else that might give me an insight to the opposite gender (assuming those shows do that). I am not writing this as an apology on behalf of my gender but because the female psyche is a realm that I have yet to fathom and this film not only exposes the abyss of the women's trade atrocities but also to the uncharted territory of one woman's quest for happiness.

That particular woman is Irena (Xenia Rappoport- her performance is beyond describable), Irena is an Italian speaking, Russian-descent woman in her 30's that starts to work as a maid in an affluent house of well to do parents and their little girl. At first, her "curiosity" for her employers' belongings (and since they are in the Diamond business, belongings they have in abundance) leaves the viewer to assume that Irena is a skilled thief that believes in the broader definition of the term "Cleaning". Clearly, the truth is much more complicated.

It is also clear that the past of Irena is riddled with humiliation, violence and degradation committed on her by, well, the lesser people of my specimen but most of all she is haunted not only by what she had to endure but by what she had and lost and more importantly, what she never got the chance to have. I am deliberately enigmatic because the film is too. The peeling of Irena's past is is gradual and seemingly sporadic and her past is gut wrenching and scarring.

While the viewers are getting clearer glimpses of that past, Irena, knowing that the skeletons in her closet are vivid and always present, forms a bond with her employers' daughter, a young and fragile kid that Irena seems determined, far too determined to a stranger's eye, to instill the street-toughness that Irena had to acquire in ways that are anything but pleasant.

The fictitious story of Irena (which is all too real to too many women) could have been a display of sensationalist voyeurism, a self righteous lecture of the trivial and obvious (and let's face it, I didn't need to see the film to find the notion of women trading despicable) or a mere excuse to show a morbid film under a politically correct subject.

This film doesn't have a shred of the above characteristics. The director enhances the horror atmosphere by the chilling musical score, the absolutely flawless acting and script and primarily, by exposing a woman's quest for happiness amidst the live that leaves very little chance of attaining it.

I am usually highly reluctant to discover major plot advancement in movies (even movies I don't recommend to watch) but this film excavates the problem because the deciphering the enigmatic story of Irena is so engrossing and the most valuable asset of the film that disclosing even the smallest of details might weaken the movie's effect. This movie is worth seeing with a companion so you can discuss its qualities and ponder of the true nature of the movie's end (and I used the word "Enigmatic" in this review far too many times already).

There are a couple of matters that I do prefer to clarify:

The movie is the reason why people make movies and why people like yours truly enjoy movies so much. Not only there aren't any noticeable flaws in the film, there are also no redundant scenes, tedious dialog lines that could be discarded or disturbing views that can be eliminated without heavily impairing the overall impression of the film.

The disturbing views are usually implied and the ones that are clear appear for a fraction of a second but leaves a far longer impression. Those of you who envision this film as a myriad of scenes of red wine and Lake Maggiore passing through the window of a fiat 500 are in for a major disappointment.

The rest, though, will experience the true effect of a flawless film that leaves an impression that exceeds the limitations of my penmanship.

10 out of 10 in My FilmOmeter

After a long time, a new Tornatore film. After the second viewing I decided to write a comment about it.

When people talk about a film by Giuseppe Tornatore, they think of Sicily first with it's burning sun and it's orange villages. This is one of his darker films, if not his darkest (on par with Il Camorrista).

As sound as the first fade in of this film appeared, I was hooked. I will not spoil anything, but you'll see some pretty powerful stuff. The story is complicated and important, so giving examples might spoil something, so I focus on the experience of this film itself.

I have never seen most of the actors in this (except Placido), but they all did an amazing job. Kseniya Rappoport is so great in this film that it's just haunting. Her performance is a winner without doubt, but the supportive cast never seems shy to make their emotions as real as they can.

The shots that this film uses are great. All Tornatore films are beautiful, but this one is a real dark gem. As him and few other can do, he makes the world real.

The script is strong. I cannot just define it as a drama, because that is a vague term. It's also a disturbing film with a warm touch (a heartbreaking plot that twists in a good way).

Ennio Morricone wrote the score. I am a great fan of him and I must say that even now, being 77, he is still the top composer in the entire industry. With his score for La Sconosciuta he surprised me. Again. This man is so amazing that I curse the Academy awards every day for ignoring him for more than 40 years.

So is there nothing bad about La Sconosciuta? Yes there is; the DVD is only available in Italy. I bought one with English subtitles so I have little problem watching it, but this can be quite a damper on it's international fame. I hope this one gets a great international release, both in cinema and on DVD. Great pieces of art should not be kept indoors.

I give it 10 out of 10. The best of 2006 and perfect in every way.