Romantic Story – Camera Coverage

(original title: Divorzio all’italiana)

Directed by Pietro Germi

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“Have you really got another headache?”

This week we’re heading out to Italy with this film by Sicilian director Pietro Germi. His early work is characterized by a neorealist tone in the likes of Rosselini or Vittorio De Sica (in films such as Il ferroviere (1956). In the sixties his line of work shifted towards the satirical comedy in the likes of Dino Risi or Mario Monicelli. This Italian style of comedy, the so-called commedia all’italiana (comedy Italian style) is characterized by a profound sense of social criticism beside the curtain of apparent lightness of laughter. The film ended up giving Germi the Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen at the 35th Academy Awards in 1962 and as well the Best Comedy award at the Cannes festival.

In Divorce Italian Style (1961), Germi plays a masterful take on the Sicilian machismo, only possible through an acute sense of comedy. Baron Ferdinando Cefalù (Marcello Mastroianni) is a disgraced nobleman married to Rosalia (Daniela Rocca). He has grown out of love with her and wants desperately to dissolve the marriage. The problem resides in the fact that at the time divorce was prohibited by law, leaving him “trapped” with Rosalia for the rest of his life. The illegality of divorce had its deep roots on the influence that the Catholic Church still had on life in Italy, especially the south. Fefè, as his wife affectionately calls him, draws a devious plan in order to get rid of Rosalia. By bringing her close to affection to another man, making him the cuckold, he could then kill then both, invoking that crime of passion and get away with murder. After this, he could finally make his move on to Angela (Stefania Sandrelli), his 16 years old cousin who he was infatuated with.

“Angela, what an unexpected pleasure”

The comic aspect of the film starts with the contrasts between the physical appearance of the couple. The baron is a cool figure, with a cigarette on the corner of his mouth, dark shades and a stylish moustache. A bon vivant and in a way a figure out of his time. But that is only a cover, shown by the preoccupations with his body (in a funny scene at the mirror where Mastroianni reflects about his belly size), and the way he presents himself at home, with the hair unkempt and rumpled clothes. In a way Mastroianni is creating a satire of the perfect and charming Italian lover, which includes himself in the lot (like in Fellini´s La Dolce Vita (1960). Despite all his flaws, Fefè is still convinced that he´s on top of his game and deserves a better looking and younger wife.

His wife Rosalia is characterized physically by the excessive body hair, especially in her face, with the subtle moustache and unibrow. Fefè is clearly repulsed by her and her constant shows of love make him rather disconformable. To add up, Rosalia has this very high-pitched voice and extravagant poses. The audience, despite knowing that is wrong, almost ends up in a devious way to agree with him. Germi makes the viewer enter in a conflict with themselves and therefore make him in Mastroianni´s shoes. If we analyse deeper though, Rosalia is a naïve kind of person, completely unaware of his husband unhappiness with the relationship.

Through the film we see him fantasizing about how he would kill his wife. Either by stabbing her in the back and throwing her into a soap caldron; or later in the beach by imagining her being swallowed up in quicksand. He finally finds Carmelo (Leopoldo Trieste), a World War II veteran who was deeply in love with Rosalia. The designing of plan was now completed, and when the two finally met again and fell in love, Fefè was now the cuckold. The shame was not only onto him but the entire family, ending a part of it being the reason for his father´s death or the actions against Rosalia and Carmelo.

Baron Ferdinando “Fefè” Cefalù and his wife Rosalia

The end shatters completely with the double standard of the male chauvinism. Now with a clear path to chase and marry the young Angela, she ends up behaving a lot like him. The irony displaced in the final scenes maybe tries to show that the problem is more a societal one than only the mischievous character of the baron. This is not an excuse for the husband´s actions, which are evidentially reprovable. But in the end, it feels like is easier to kill the partner than to lawfully divorce him. In addiction to this, the reaction of his family and the deep sense of shame all around the village display the problems that a post war and now democratic Italy had with machismo and the authority of the old institutions.

(original title: Beoning)

Directed by Chang-dong Lee

“You burn down other people’s greenhouses?”

Burning is a 2018 film that unfortunately was only released in Portugal (where we are based) precisely a year after its premiere on the Cannes Film Festival. To worsen things, only a limited number of smaller cinemas decided to screen it. A sad resolution to a challenging and interesting film, a clear difference from the lack of creativity that plagued the commercial circuit in the last month.

Director Chang-dong Lee maintains the caustic and dramatic style that characterized most of his films. Lee tries on his works to access the darkness in the human nature, putting his characters in situations way beyond their comfort zone. Either by turbulent political scenarios like in his directing debut Green Fish (1997), or in Peppermint Candy (2000), a haunting tale of a man’s downward spiral to suicide; or finally and maybe his most well received film Oasis (2002), dealing with father and daughter relations amidst a debilitating disease. This last one ended up receiving the Best Director’s award and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Leading Actress on the well-respected Venice Film Festival.

This time Lee brings to the screen an adaptation of a small story by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami (“Barn Burning”, 1982). The film takes place on current day South Korea, having as the lead character Jongsu (Ah-in Yoo). A recent graduate of literary studies he finds it hard to get a job in his field of studies. A well-read young man, quotes William Faulkner as his favorite writer, mostly because of how relatable his writing is to him. During a walk in Seul he suddenly meets a childhood friend named Haemi (Jong-seo Jun). They both are from a countryside village outside of Seul. Haemi is now a grown woman and like most in Korea has done plastic surgery, making her almost unrecognizable to Jongsu. They have a dinner and afterward she invites him to her house, where they end up having sex. There Jongsu acknowledges her decision to go to Africa and accepts feeding her cat while she is gone. While she is away, he decides to take care of his family farm where he spent his childhood, dreaming of Haemi’s return.

This surely one of those films that the less we know coming to the cinema the better, because the second half sure takes an unexpected turn from the romantic drama vibe that characterized the first part (which ironically kind of renders this review a bad tool for the ones who haven’t watched it ). When Haemi returns from Africa, we are introduced to a new friend that she made named Ben (Steven Yeun). A very rich individual, he “steals” Haemi from Jongsu, but despite that she still invites him to hang around them both, acting like an awkward third wheel. Besides that, there’s a delicate class critique around Ben. Jongsu compares him to Gatsby from the famous Fritzgerald’s novel, wondering what his occupation is to grant him this luxurious lifestyle.

“Misterious people who are young and rich but you dont know what they do”

Haemi is this happy and naïve like figure, and doesn’t care for such things as Jongsu does, who from the start feels there is something off with Ben. One day her and Ben appear uninvited in Jongsu’s family farm. In a moment alone Ben confesses his love with burning greenhouses, leaving a sense of imminent danger in the air. Despite that, Haemi is totally clueless to this and Ben’s love for arson. In one beautiful scene (after Ben’s revelation) during dusk, with the North Korean montains in the background, Haemi dances half naked to the sound of Miles Davis soundtrack of Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958). The cinematography by Kyung-pyo Hong is gorgeous and adds a lot to giving a sense of dreamlike state, leaving the viewer more and more uncertain about what is happening.

The haunting Haemi dancing scene

Jongsu is a calm and introverted individual. Throughout the film we get clues about his past and childhood, especially the ones dealing with his mother. He is a lone wolf kind of person and starts to obsess with Haemi. There is a patent and ever-growing rage inside him against Ben, who despite always seeming uninterested in Haemi’s actions, she always tries to please him. This jealousy ends up hurting Jonsu’s relationship with her and leaving him with a lot of guilty caused by his behavior. But when he tries to amend things with her, she’s not there to talk to him. There’s a deep tension in this film but it is always invisible. The answers don’t seem to appear, but the rage grows stronger by the minute. In the end we can’t help but to feel if Jongsu’s obsession with Haemi and attempt to control her actions was part of the motivation for such a rageful and traumatic closure. As if he felt not only rage against Ben but also with himself.

8 out of 10

Tag: Romantic Story

Divorce Italian Style (1961)