Vermiglio

 

Writer/director Maura Delpero

Delpero with the Silver Lion at Venice

The director on the set

VERMIGLIO                         B                                                                                               Italy  France  Belgium  (119 mi)  2024  d: Maura Delpero

My father left us one summer afternoon. Before closing them forever, he looked at us with the big, amazed eyes of a child. I had already heard that when you get older you become a little child again, but I didn’t know that those two ages could merge into a single face. In the months that followed, he came to visit me in a dream. He had returned to his childhood home, in Vermiglio. He was six years old and had a toothless smile and the legs of a mountain goat and was carrying this film under his arm: four seasons in the life of his large family. A story of children and adults, amongst deaths and births, disappointments and rebirths, of their holding each other tight in the turns of life, and out of a community growing into individuals. Of the smell of wood and warm milk on freezing mornings. With the distant and ever-present war, experienced by those who remained outside the great machine: the mothers who watched the world from a kitchen, with newborns dying because of blankets that were too short, the women who feared they were already widows, the farmers who waited for children who never returned, the teachers and priests who replaced the fathers. A story of war without bombs, or great battles. In the uncompromising logic of the mountain that every day reminds man how small he is. 

Vermiglio is a landscape of the soul, a “family saying” that lives inside me, on the threshold of the unconscious, an act of love for my father, his family and their small village. Travelling through a personal time, it wants to pay homage to a collective memory.

—Maura Delpero, Director’s Statement, VERMIGLIO

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize (2nd Place) at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, while also winning the Best Film in the feature film competition at the Chicago Film Festival (Festival Award Winners - Cinema Chicago), and even shortlisted for the Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, but failed to make the final cut, so this film is critically acclaimed, but sluggishly paced and only mildly engaging, where it feels overly drawn out, with a novelesque sweep of too many characters that can be challenging, yet the remote location in the Italian Alps is breathtaking.  Written, directed, and produced by Maura Delpero, an Italian director who studied literature both in Italy and France before shifting gears to study film at the Professional Training Center of SICA in Buenos Aires, making several documentaries before releasing her first feature, MATERNAL (2019), inspired by her own experiences as a teacher in Argentina.  This is another intensely personal project, creating a family portrait inspired by her own experiences, yet enlarged, becoming a collective memory movie.  Not nearly as successful as Sarah Polley’s collective voices drama, 2023 Top Ten List #1 Women Talking, which utilizes a similar technique, but Polley’s characters are more fully formed, each one readily identified by viewers, creating substantially greater dramatic impact that this more subdued film lacks.  Part of it is the source material, as Polley drew from a novel by Miriam Toews that features almost exclusively women, described by the novelist as “an imagined response to real events,” where their agenda is clearly recognizable and heartfelt.  This feels more muddled, rather dark and pessimistic, harder to follow, where not much actually happens, as it’s more of a quietly subtle, observational movie, almost like a documentary, inspired by a love for the cinematic poetry of Ermanno Olmi (more in spirit than his directorial style), whose looming presence permeates throughout, capturing the experience of work and family, where his films are full of life and dignity, drawing inspiration from his Catholic faith, and can be viewed as simplicity itself, expressed through humor and grace.  Perhaps a throwback to Luchino Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963), or even Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon (Das Weiße Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte) (2009), with children prominently in the foreground, also reminiscent of Thomas Hardy novels and their film adaptations, like Michael Winterbottom’s JUDE (1996) or Thomas Vinterberg’s Far From the Madding Crowd (2015), this historical drama is set in a remote location in the mountains with just a few hundred inhabitants near the end of WWII in 1944.  Shot in the Italian neorealist mode with a mostly non-professional cast, the cinematography is a canvas of still life, with a predilection for fixed shots, providing not only insight into the everyday routine, but a static lens observing the tension between tradition and change, between the natural cycle of the changing seasons, and the transformations imposed by the war, filled with quiet moments, disappointments, and the everlasting bonds of family.  Without a trace of sentimentality, there is room for pauses and silences, which become as eloquent as the dialogues, as traces of war linger long after the war ended, upending the social fabric, leading to unemployment and poverty, affecting a significant part of society, which led to the birth of Italian neorealism.  Outside of food shortages and conversational references, along with occasional planes flying overhead, there are no war references, no battles, no bombs exploding, and no graphic violence, as this could be happening at any point in history and the village would function primarily the same, giving the film a timelessness that goes beyond the borders, as it’s more of a time capsule of the living, characterized by long takes and sparse dialogue, where the pace is slow and deliberate, the drama understated, and the silences can feel oppressive.            

Certainly not lacking in ambition, as this film stakes out its claim into largely untold territory, effectively highlighting how many ingrained prejudices and injustices toward women follow us from generation to generation, painting a predominately picturesque portrait of the price we pay, even among our families.  Primary schoolmaster Cesare Graziadei (Tommaso Ragno) and his wife Adele (Roberta Rovelli) have a sprawling family with eight children, and she’s pregnant again.  The older children in their late teens are Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), who embodies the transition from adolescence to adulthood in a world that demands conformity, and her somewhat slacker brother Dino (Patrick Gardner), clearly disillusioned by the idea of being relegated to a life as a common laborer, yet neither can complete their schooling due to the war.  The relentlessly curious Ada (Rachele Potrich) is around fourteen, one of the older students in her father’s schoolhouse, who hides a rebellious streak, while his pet favorite, the more studious Flavia (Anna Thaler), a voracious reader, is eleven.  There are also three younger boys and a baby, with the five oldest sharing two beds in a single bedroom.  There is no electricity in the village, and no indoor plumbing, so the living situation is rustic, where each day begins with the milking of the cows, as a handful of warmed, freshly gathered milk is carefully poured into the bowls of each child as they gather around the table.  Due to the cramped living quarters, no one has any privacy, so individual family members lock themselves into rooms when no one is looking, hide behind corners, or linger in the empty barn, just to have some time to themselves.  For the most part, the film follows three young women, Ada, Lucia, and Flavia, seen chattering among themselves in bed at night, archetypes in a search for emancipation, who move between the bonds of a patriarchal society and their desires for freedom, in a community very enclosed in itself, where the past is always present and where fate is marked by roads already assigned to each.  While there’s not really a story, per se, the film is framed around the interactions between the family and the neighboring community, told in brief vignettes, almost like a family photo album, as their daily routines come to life as they confront teen angst, forbidden desires, infant mortality, and WWII-era deprivation, often resorting to the rosary for their moral transgressions.  Also in the home is Adele’s widowed sister Cesira (Orietta Notari), who is secretly sheltering her son Attilio (Santiago Fondevila) out in the barn along with his illiterate friend Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), having brought a wounded and shell-shocked son back home, both fugitives, as they deserted from forced army service under the Nazis, known by the entire village that they are kept hidden, yet they join the family at church every Sunday.  No one stands up to the strict and rigid patriarch Cesare, whose influential position of authority is unchallenged, touching the lives of everyone, bringing education and culture to a region that couldn’t be more isolated, far removed from the rest of the world.  Adele questions her husband’s spending on a phonograph record, believing that money could be better spent on food (“It is food for the soul,” he retorts), but part of the pattern of life is hearing what he listens to intently in his study, including Vivaldi’s ebullient The Four Seasons Concerto No. 2 'Summer' - Allegro non ... YouTube (10:22), which he plays in his classroom, pointing out the intruding sounds of nature, specifically the way the composer uses music to mimic the sounds of birds, yet also the more ponderous reserve of a Chopin Nocturne, Arthur Rubinstein - Chopin Nocturne Op. 9, No. 1 in B flat YouTube (5:27).

Moving from season to season, this rhythm of life story revolves around the budding love affair of Lucia and the Sicilian army deserter Pietro, who are watched carefully by her younger sisters, culminating in their celebratory wedding, where the open-air festivities surrounded by the massive expanse of the Dolomites looming in the background is an extended spectacle, shot in stunning natural light by Mikhail Krichman, the renowned cinematographer of Andrey Zvyagintsev, featuring plenty of food and dancing to the rudimentary sounds of local musicians that make everything feel suspended in time.  It’s fair to say that Pietro may be the least developed character, where a distinct perspective shifts to that of Lucia after the end of the war, as Pietro goes away to visit his family in Sicily and mysteriously disappears, leaving a terrible void in his absence.  Instead the focus is on the influence and authoritative rule of Cesare, a complex character with considerable intellect and a talent for teaching, perhaps the only educated figure in the region, seen taking the kids on long walks into the forest, where in addition to teaching the grade school kids he runs an adult literacy class in the evenings, but despite his love for classical music and literature, he is emotionally distanced from the people around him, where his biggest flaw may be emotional neglect, particularly to those closest to him.  The most well-rounded portrait may be that of Ada, torn between faith and desire, and possibly queer, full of interior conflicts, where much of this world is seen through her prying eyes, tempted by her own desires and discoveries, like sharing private moments with her more assertively bold and “bad influence” friend Virginia (Carlotta Gamba), who likes to wear makeup and is typically seen smoking a cigarette in the barn, or sneaking a peek of erotica photographs kept hidden in her father’s desk, disappointed that he thinks she is underserving of any continuing education, saving that for Flavia alone, who is chosen to be sent away to boarding school in the city, leaving Ada’s options for the future extremely limited.  “Nothing’s special about me,” she confesses in church.  Based on the economic pressures of getting by, the parents can’t afford to send all the children on to further their education, and have to decide who among their daughters shows the most promise for school, and who is better suited to be a housewife, archaic rules that have been handed down for centuries.  The different ages of the sisters embody a different evolution of female desire, one adopting marriage and children, while another exhibits a curiosity about the different paths women may follow, even exploring other possible forms of love, while the youngest sister represents the future, including the possibility of adopting a more modern outlook that may counter tradition, possibly the only one of the sisters who will end up coming out of that suffocating everyday life.  With that in mind, Flavia may be the stand-in for the director, recalling many of her own memories (her father was from this same village, the youngest of a family with ten kids), visually embracing the female characters in their struggles, offering a feminist commentary on how women are trapped in traditional roles in such an unchanging patriarchal society, where the moral fabric of the entire community is formed by women who almost never leave their kitchens.  Extending beyond a war drama, this is something of a meditation on the ability to cope with events and the need to redefine oneself in the face of the challenges of life.  Exploring the fragile balance between collective memory and personal identity, Delpero has created a reminder of what it means to grow up in a small village, where family is the connecting glue, as no single character’s story is elevated over any others, and the film is less the narrative of an individual or couple than that of a collective, speaking a strange local dialect that must be translated to Italian, even playing with subtitles in Italian theaters.  One constant heard throughout is the relentless sound of baby noises, from just stirring around, yet also fussing and crying uncontrollably, often accompanied by a mother cooing or singing softly.  After the movie closes, we are left with the sounds of the village which can still be heard throughout the entirety of the end credits. 

Maura Delpero’s Closet Picks  Criterion selections on YouTube (3:36)

Only the River Flows (He bian de cuo wu)

 

Director Wei Shujun

Author Yu Hua

ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS (He bian de cuo wu)              B+                                                  China  (101 mi)  2023  d:  Wei Shujun

There’s no understanding fate; therefore I choose to play the part of fate.  I wear the foolish, unintelligible, face of a professional god.                                                                                        —Albert Camus, opening film quote from his play Caligula, 1944, part of his Cycle of the Absurd

Premiering in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival before becoming an arthouse box office hit in China, this heavily stylish, neo-noir murder mystery was shot on 16mm in the Zhejiang and Jiangxi Provinces, apparently the first mainland Chinese movie to be shot on film in years, where the film stock had to be scanned and printed in Taiwan, given a beautifully dark and murky look with desaturated colors by cinematographer Chengma Zhiyuan.  Reminiscent of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s neo-noir horror film CURE (1997), and the psychological crime thrillers of Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok) (2003) and Diao Yinan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice (Bai ri yan huo) (2014), this was adapted by Wei and Kang Chunlei, who also has a prominent role as a suspected murderer in the film, from Yu Hua’s morally ambiguous short story in his 1988 compilation Mistakes by the River.  A rapper turned filmmaker, having majored in sound recording from the Communication University of China in Beijing, Wei is the only post-90’s Chinese director to have been selected three times for the Cannes Film Festival, working with different combinations of screenwriters on every project, but his earlier film Striding Into the Wind (Ye Ma Fen Zong) (2020), ironically about a sound recordist, left something to be desired, an aimless and empty slacker comedy that was admittedly offbeat and quirky, not something you typically see from China.  Yet here what immediately grabs one’s attention is Emil Gilels coolly playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No ... YouTube (6:10), the same pensive piece used in Edward Yang’s Yi Yi: A One and a Two... (2000), while the everpresent flashlight was also prominently featured in Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day (Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian) (1991).  Opening in December 1995, the film takes place in a small rural town with only 50 homes, where a murder has been committed along the shoreline of a nearby river, with a woman known locally as Granny No. 4 (Yang Cao) emerging as the victim.  By setting the film in this time period, occurring between the events of Tiananmen Square and the more recent economic boom, it evokes a period just before technology brought changes to forensic science, evidenced by boxed desktop computers, cassette tapes, transistor radios, Polaroid photographs, and incessant indoor smoking, a time when citizens led a repressed and silent life, when adherence to social norms was the most important thing, often pushing people to shame and secrecy, yet it was also a time when everyone did everything together, like eat, work, play, where socialization was done face to face, as opposed to now when everybody is isolated on their phones.  The police chief (Hou Tianlai) has given his squad a vast new headquarters in a broken down movie theater that has fallen into disuse (audience attendance in China was at an all-time low in the mid 90’s, so the government decided to allow screenings of Hollywood films), providing an office in what was the projection booth, surrounded by broken projectors and abandoned reels, symbolic, perhaps, that what we’re watching is not always reality, urging his lead detective, Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) to wrap things up quickly, as all eyes of the Party bosses are on this case, determined to prevent another serial killer like Andrei Chikatilo, who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990.  More concerned with appearances and the incarceration of the presumed murderer than any motives that may have driven the crime, the Party assumes the role of the protector of society.  What really stands out, however, is the self-reflective quality of the film, a poignant character study of a man who’s finding it increasingly difficult to ascertain truth and justice, as the conventions of a detective movie start breaking down, placing us directly into the mindset of Ma Zhe, perhaps as much to do with existential angst as the solving of a murder, with offbeat flashes of wry humor and no traces of any graphic violence, while the investigation team is busily stabbing pig carcasses to see which blade may be the most similar to the murder weapon.  The camera revisits the scene of the crime from multiple perspectives, actually assuming the position of the murderer, with the victim showing no fear or apprehension by his presence.

Opening with a sequence in which a young boy dressed as a policeman and carrying a toy gun chases his friends around an upper floor through a maze of corridors of an abandoned building, opening and closing doors without finding anyone, until he reaches a door which dangerously opens into the emptiness of free-falling space, where there is a precipitous drop down to the rubble of a construction site below, with the child seen staring out into the abyss, a premonition, perhaps, of the detective coming up blank in his search for answers, yet otherwise having no relation to the story, and the boy is never seen again, with the unfinished construction reflective of a time when the rapid development across small villages had come to a sudden halt.  All the director’s titles invoke spatial metaphors, not really the point in making the film, but somehow the people in the story connect to that physical space, becoming a thematic point of emphasis that viewers are drawn into.  Essentially a police procedural movie, like a puzzle piece, with Ma Zhe examining the murder site, interrogating witnesses, always accompanied by his more excitable second in command, Xie (Tong Linkai), while meticulously exploring the clues, with the film playing out as a work in progress.  Of peculiar interest is the overly descriptive name of one of the potential suspects, known only as the “madman” (Kang Chunlei), who has suddenly disappeared, someone the victim adopted after becoming a widow, something of the village idiot, instantly becoming a person of interest, but it’s rare for a name to connote such an ominous nature.  When he’s found, Ma Zhe’s interrogation techniques are not what we suspect, as the “madman” never utters a word, described by others as harmless, so the detective attempts a non-threatening approach, silently hanging around, observing from a distance, gathering what information he can, while still pursuing the evidence.  His arrest somewhere around the midway point seems to suggest the case has been solved, with Ma Zhe’s seemingly satisfied superior pondering “Why haven’t you wrapped up your report yet?”  Indicating he still needs to sort things out, this opens the eyes of viewers, who suspect more is lurking in the darkness.  A woman’s purse is discovered near the crime scene, containing cassettes of familiar pop songs, but at some point a woman’s voice breaks in, where she is clearly speaking to a secret lover, as the town’s buried secrets emerge, exposing a couple in a secret relationship and a gay hairdresser who tries to hide his identity, yet seemingly wants to be arrested, already having a criminal record for public indecency, described here as “violations of morality.”  Running down these leads proves to be difficult, and may not have anything to do with the case, but they are part of the process of moving from suspect to suspect, where the stress takes its toll on Ma Zhe’s professional and private life, as his wife Bai, Chloe Maayan from Lou Ye’s SUMMER PALACE (2006), Bi Gan’s 2019 Top Ten List #6 Long Day's Journey Into Night (Di qiu zui hou de ye wan) (2018), and Diao Yinan’s The Wild Goose Lake (Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui) (2019), is a primary school teacher who is expecting a baby, with the ultra sound informing them that this child may be suffering from an incurable congenital defect and might have cognitive development problems.  Coming against the background of a mentally challenged suspect and possible murderer, also strained by the effects of China’s one-child policy, Ma Zhe suggests she have an abortion, but his wife thinks otherwise, turning into a debate about the value of life, becoming an aggravating source of tension between them, as he’s completely invested in the murder case, but she is seen calmly attempting to put together a gigantic jigsaw puzzle of a mother and child, yet in a fit of rage, he flushes a few of the remaining pieces down the toilet.  Moments later, however, we see the entire puzzle framed on the wall with no pieces missing, completely at odds with reality.  In more mundane moments of domestic tranquility, watching them slurp noodles with chopsticks is a thing to behold, taking us back to filmmakers Wong Kar-wai and Hou Hsiao-hsien, where it was a signature trademark with both. 

Essentially a crime drama, what’s unique is the contemplative, existential aspect of the protagonist, where the root of his discomfort is never established, but is apparent throughout.  While his trustworthy dedication and loyalty to the job are never questioned, it’s his intelligence and adherence to rational thought that stands out, as Ma Zhe has a moral outlook that rises above his coworkers, as he is capable of seeing things they don’t, with lingering questions that dig deep into his soul, creating a personal conflict, yet the film is completely invested in his character, with all the moral ambiguities, taking us on a journey that continually feels overly understated and discreet, delving into unexplored territory, as facts and evidence become interlinked with subjective memory, pure conjecture, and even guesswork.  After the prisoner escapes and more murders occur, including a student poet and a young boy, the “madman” again becomes the focal point, but something interesting happens, as the psychological mindset of the criminal and the lead detective somehow merge, with Ma Zhe so obsessed with the case that he begins seeing the suspect everywhere, contaminating his mind, burrowing deep into his subconscious, undermining his police instincts, creating an impressionistic, off-kilter montage that seemingly takes place entirely in his imagination.  A turning point occurs when he falls asleep in an empty movie theater and experiences a surrealistic, David Lynch Twin Peaks style dream sequence, with each of the murder victims speaking to him, concocting an entirely different conclusion to the case, driven by a projector that bursts into flames, becoming a metaphor for the fallibility of truth.  This unexpected aspect of the film is quite surprising, taking us where few films are willing to go, essentially five minutes of an homage to cinema like few contemporary directors still dare to do, with a lead protagonist unraveling into a descent of madness, obsession, and personal isolation, as it defies all rationality and deductive reasoning typically associated with police work, instead creating a muddled netherworld that feels more symbolic than real, yet all the evidence is re-evaluated in this new light, filtered through an altered mindset, where it’s hard to distinguish between what’s real and what’s imagined.  This only heightens the mystery, drawing viewers into a mystifying unknown, yet the film inscrutably builds Ma Zhe’s character throughout, rarely seen without a cigarette, becoming familiar to us, where we appreciate what we know about him, as his integrity and ardent professionalism continually stand out, becoming the driving force of the film, dominating all that we see, yet there’s something else happening here, an undercurrent of doubt, with no cut and dry answers, which elevates this into unexplored territory, expressing a disarming honesty, becoming an unfinished and incomplete portrait of moral authority, which is rare in a police procedural.  This plays into Yu Hua’s literary vision, an author known for his abstract writing style, whose stories portray disturbing personal realities of modern China, accentuating the interplay of diverse meanings, particularly between imagination and reality, innocence and guilt, blurring the lines between postmodernism and tradition, often venturing into the absurd, examining the dark side of human psychology and society in a non-traditional way, with subjective storylines that investigate and illustrate the challenges of cultural disintegration and identity loss.  Defiantly ambiguous, this absorbing yet completely atmospheric crime drama is heavily punctuated by images of abandoned and neglected houses, narrow streets, and torrents of rain, apparently washing the sins away, generating a suffocating atmosphere that blurs the lines between good and evil, but the film’s exploration of complex social and moral themes, such as fetishes, identity, and the intricacies of human emotions, play a significant role in allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions.  This is a uniquely innovative film built upon a classical film noir structure, which looks to the past as a way of trying to understand the present, becoming an impressionistic mosaic on the ephemeral nature of truth, which is one of the more dangerously perplexing problems of modernity.