susanascot

Paolo Laurana is a kind of leftist intellectual who chances to be intrigued by a mysterious double murder in the Sicily of mid Sixties. In his personal detection for murder's instigators, he will run into a plot in which both politicians and mafia racketeers are involved. So curiosity will become a very dangerous affair. Taken from a novel by Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989), A ciascuno il suo (1967) is a film where high rank acting is at its top. Cast (Gianmaria Volonté, Irene Papas, Gabriele Ferzetti, Salvo Randone, Luigi Pistilli. Mario Scaccia, Leopoldo Trieste) is perfect and well-combined, direction (Elio Petri, 1929-1982) is powerful and impressive. If compared to the novel, Elio Petri's film (written with Ugo Pirro) may seem short of that illuministic pessimism that breathes through Sciascia's books, but Laurana's rationalistic search for truth retains that `bitter taste of intelligence' which is one of the major feature of Sciascia's characters. A key film to understand historical condition of Italy in the Sixties.

In `Laura…a sedici anni mi dicesti di sì' (`Laura…you said yes at sixteen') the plot is very simple: Gino, young fisherman in Pozzuoli, is in love with Laura, a sixteen year old girl, but her parents are against the liaison. They meet again after a ten-year estrangement and the flame of passion is soon rekindled. But old hates are not off and complications ensue.

This movie is a classic instance of Neapolitan sceneggiata, a subgenre of theater that goes back to the early XX century and finally got to the screen. When you see a neapolitan sceneggiata on the screen, you can bet a melodramatic and rough clash-of-passions story is going on and obviously the place where all things happen is Naples and/or its surroundings. The Neapolitan setting characterizes the sceneggiata in its main features: characters are passionate, lots of tears are shed (both in happiness and sorrow), good old feelings always overcome in the end and large amount of tearful songs are heard. Director Alfonso Brescia (1930-2001) was specialized in trash and pulp, but perhaps he is best knwon (together with Ciro Ippolito, Mario Merola and more recently Nino D'Angelo) as a master in Neapolitan `sceneggiata'.

A beautiful wife of good social standing falls into a flaming passion with a young man. Sooner than expected, she will be unable to terminate the liaison. It will follows that her husband is not wanted. And you can be sure she's not considering divorce as a solution. Written by master screenwriter Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, "Femmina" ("Woman") tells a story claiming to explore vortex of the "amour fou", but proving to be only an unplausible and boring softcore. Stage actress Monica Guerritore - at her nth movie of such kind - does her utmost in several sexual intercourses with her young lover, but she acts like a jazz musician who fails to reach flareup. No intensity. No rapture. No carnality. But most of the fails of this beat-the-air movie falls on Director Giuseppe Ferlito, who showed unable to be wide awake at the wheel. Reasons why Mrs Guerritore chooses such roles remain an impenetrable mystery.