Respiro
Italie
2002
Réal. : Emanuele Crialese,
A
vec : Valéria Golino, Vincenzo Amato, Francesco Casisa, Avy Marciano

 

It's the simple story of simple fisherman's family in a small simple Sicilian fishing village. A Franco-Italian film, with a cameo appearance by two Frenchmen on their sailboat, this film was obviously made by Frenchmen who love Italy. It's almost propaganda for the Italian board of tourism, but also acts to explain of the famous closedness to foreigners of this region, without ever needing to go. In short, the community is unchanged, refined like a diamond over time and this film seems made so as to help us understand why the laws of nature have formed such a way of living as is violently, proudly and passionately maintained by these Sicilians.
The protagonist (Valeria Giolino) is well-known, I've seen her before, oh yeah, in Rain man!, she was sexy then, but never this incredible. You fall in love with her, it's unavoidable. She plays the wife and mother of this family. Her problem, and the problem of the film, is that she is a little nuts. But the irony is every Sicilian in the village seems to be batty, but she is crazy in ways that are different from the others, ways that go against the traditions necessary to the smooth functioning of this community "forgotten by time." Thus her craziness is unacceptable such that they ask her to leave. She does nothing really shocking. An example: when she wants to go swimming without a top with her two boys in the ocean. The boys about 8 and 13 protest their mother's immodesty, trying to force her to wear her cotton dress in the water. But she insists on her nakedness and when other fishermen passing in their speedboat see her, the whole town freaks out.
I won't ruin all the lovely little stories that happen between these fascinating characters. I'll simply say that we are made in this film to care deeply about each character so as to penetrate and know a place that is often stereotyped and uncharted by foreigners. In the end, we understand and even envy their "backwards" community. They have everything they need! I was seized by noble savage nostalgia. Also, its simultaneously intellectual and primitive. All the symbols of humanity occur naturally in their story: the Oedipus complex, the subjugation of woman, the virgin mary, man's burden. Putting these terms on the story like this in my critique seems to me a raping of a beautiful story. I apologize. But the images of this film show these problems in powerful physical personal scenes such that I did not want to get up and leave the theater after the film had finished.
The film is full of comedy and tragedy and lust and is a reminder of man's intimate relationship with himself and this gorgeous earth.

Andrew F.
version française

 

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