Séduite et abandonnée

The Italians are masters at laughing at themselves. I wonder if Iraq had developed that kind of self parody the world wouldn't have turned a much different place. I mention Iraq because, based on the tale told in "Seduced and Abandoned", the only difference between Sicily and Iraq is the name of their God. The great Pietro Germi designs a grotesquely comic masterpiece of such ferocity that the line between comedy and tragedy is indeed very thin. As is typical in a Germi film, the cast is uniformly sensational. Here, besides a very young and extraordinary Stefania Sandrelli, there is a superlative performance by Saro Urzi, the head of the family threatened by a devastating scandal. Ignorance and hypocrisy dissected with a refined, elegant hand. Observed with the acute, unsentimental eye of an outsider and yet, Pietro Germi, was an Italian who looked with affectionate horror at the cultural ties that kept his Country trailing behind the rest of the western world. Not to be missed.

A beautiful sixteen year old girl is seduced by her older sister's fiancée, a conniving would-be bureaucrat. How far will the tradition-bound paterfamilias go to restore the family's lost honor? Well, if you're writer/director Pietro Germi, the answer is pretty darn far—including perjury, kidnapping, murder, and bribing an eccentric baron with a new set of false teeth. Rarely has male hypocrisy and sexual double standards been so thoroughly lampooned. The film walks a fine line between comedy and tragedy, as the more and more traumatized sixteen year old girl is passed back and forth like damaged goods. Shot in beautiful black and white, on location. If you liked MAFIOSO, last year's great Italian rediscovery, you'll like this.

Pietro Germi is probably my favorite director of commedia all'italiana films, but to understand him, we have to understand commedia all'italiana, and to do that, we have to examine its roots, which lie in the Italian neorealist movement.

Italian neorealism was forged out of the ashes of World War II. After suffering Mussolini's dictatorship and Italian Fascism, followed by Nazi occupation, followed by American occupation, Italy's identity as a nation had been decimated. The new identity it would build in the postwar years would be defined in every way by the war. In cinema, directors began shooting low-budget, inexpensive films with a realistic aesthetic. This was, on one hand, a product of necessity, due to the economic impact of the war, and, on the other hand, it was an artistic choice, since the neorealists believed in a cinema that echoed reality, which meant natural lighting, nonprofessional actors, and on-location shooting. In terms of the films' content, they often featured a deep sympathy with the working class, which was the hallmark of the Marxist school of thought that was quickly beginning to dominate Italian cinema. Having recently seen the other end of the political spectrum (i.e. fascism) up close and personal, the shift leftward to communism was virtually inevitable. The other notable aspect of these neorealist films is their highly melancholic tone and grim portraits of human despair. This, too, of course, was a result of the horrors seen during the war.

Time heals all wounds, however, and by the mid-'50s, Italians were ready to wake from their doldrums and shake off the depression that had marked the years immediately following the war. Italian cinema would have to adapt. For a nation that was finally ready to laugh again, the influx of comedy into Italian films was only natural. And so the '50s saw the rise of a very unique brand of comedy that would come to be called commedia all'italiana ("comedy Italian style", borrowing its name from Germi's own 1961 film, "Divorce Italian Style").

Italian cinema now had the money and the motivation to make more commercial, more traditionally entertaining films, and while the neorealist mode of filmmaking had largely vanished by the mid-'50s, it survived through commedia all'italiana, which can best be described as an amalgam of the social realism that dominated the neorealist movement and a more conventional comedy. Commedia all'italiana, in a way, can be seen as half comedy, half neorealism, and while infusing neorealism with comedy may not sound like a good mixture, this blend of styles actually created some of the most enjoyable films in Italian cinematic history.

The directors who made films during the era of commedia all'italiana, for the most part, had apprenticed under the neorealists, and as a result much of the neorealist approach permeated their films. While the films they made were certainly comedies, they retained a poignancy, and an element of pathos, that was characteristic of Italian neorealism, and which transcended the conventions of comedic filmmaking. These filmmakers, like many of the neorealists before them, were largely communists, although it's been suggested that many only joined the party in an effort to further their careers.

And this, at last, brings us to Germi. Unlike fellow commedia all'italiana filmmaker Mario Monicelli, who was a committed, lifelong communist, Germi considered himself a social democrat. In other words, he believed in social equality, as did the left, but refused to subscribe to any specific political ideology. Germi and Monicelli both delivered indictments of society in their films, but unlike Monicelli's films, which operate on a sympathy with the working class, Germi's films are an attack on traditional, conservative values in Italian culture, specifically in the south.

While Monicelli's films tend to take place in Rome or northern cities like Turin, the films I've seen by Germi are set in Sicily, where conservative values regarding female chastity and familial honor were, certainly at the time of the film's release, at a maximum. Germi's films seem to revolve around individuals who are compelled toward unscrupulous choices and ultimately cast into a state of chaos by the rigid values of the society they live in. In "Divorce Italian Style", the protagonist lives in a Sicilian society that will not allow him to divorce (not without losing his honor and shaming himself as a cuckold), and so the only course of action left to him is to murder his wife (a comic premise, of course). In "Seduced and Abandoned", the patriarchal head of a family goes to absurd lengths to try to preserve his family's good name by covering up the corruption of his daughter's virtue at any and all costs.

In both films, we have a scenario in which completely normal, or at least non-calamitous events (the failure of a marriage, consensual sex between a fairly young man and a girl on the verge of adulthood) are elevated to a state of complete catastrophe by what Germi sees as society's ridiculous values and mores. "Seduced and Abandoned" is a scathing assault on these kinds of social mores, and despite Germi's refusal to engage a specific political doctrine, it is very much a political film. What makes it so successful, like "Divorce Italian Style", is the way Germi is able to execute his films in such a way as to make them enjoyable on two levels: as a meaningful reflection on the flaws and shortcomings of Italian society, and as pure, lighthearted, comedic entertainment. As the viewer, we have the prerogative of choosing which level to absorb. I recommend both.

RATING: 8.33 out of 10 stars

It is so rare to watch a funny masterpiece with so many insights! Sicily in the 50's appears obsessed with a twisted concept of honor, or, better, of an impeccable APPARENT reputation. No other movie I have seen is able to give such a vivid idea of the double morality for men and women that ails the "cultura machista". The character I love most in the movie is the extremely naive sister of the protagonist, who lives in her romantic world and does not realize what kind of tragicomic events are happening around her. In a word, truly a masterpiece.

The best comedies, this film included, do more than simply crack jokes. They highlight the worst qualities of humanity for the ridiculous things they are and reveal the hidden idiosyncrasies in our assumptions.

The situation presented in the film is the a thing of overwrought dramatic soap operas and reality TV. A 15 year old girl falls for her older sister's finance and gets pregnant. What is unique about the humor in this film is the rest of the family's reactions. The father, Don Vincenzo is incensed, of course and demands that Peppino marry Aganese. To do this however, Vincenzo must chase him down and convince him to marry her and Peppino just doesn't want to marry a girl who might not be faithful since she has already demonstrated that she is susceptible to seduction, even if he was the seducer.

Convincing him might be easier if it wasn't for he fact that Don Vincenzo, while caring very much whether or not his daughter is wed, cares even more that all of this remain on the hush hush. He simply will not have the family name be dragged through the dirt, even if he has to lie, cheat, steal, or murder, to keep people from thinking the family is a bunch of degenerates.

This tug of war between people's conflicting desires is what makes this film so delightfully funny. I have no doubt that this film will join films like "Tampopo" and "Death of Stalin" in my regular rotation of films I enjoy showing people when we are all in the mood for a laugh.