The Nanny (La Balia)

Director Marco Bellocchio

THE NANNY (La Balia)       B+                                                                                                 Italy  (106 mi)  1999  d: Marco Bellocchio

A film that bears some similarities to French director Antoine Santana’s own adaptation, A SONG OF INNOCENCE (2005), starring Isild Le Besco as the nanny, though Santana takes full writing credit for his film, even though there are exact copy cat shots taken directly from this earlier film.  Santana’s is a much more subversive adaptation, as it’s presented in the horror genre as class warfare against a harsh and unyielding employer, leading to a completely different and actually more satisfying ending.  Bellocchio’s is a lyrical, more novelesque adaptation, based on the novella by Luigi Pirandello, his first collaboration with screenwriter Daniela Ceselli, which merits attention due to its strict attention to period detail, a historical costume drama using gas street lamps and horse driven carriages reserved only for the rich.  Set in Rome during the end of the late 19th century, the country is undergoing political upheaval, where a fascist militia is brought in to protect the upper class by wiping out the peasant uprising, expressed through banners and red flag waving Communist demonstrations on the street.  In this capacity we meet a sympathetic Professor Mori (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), a neuropsychiatrist who treats exclusively female mental health patients at a local hospital, some of whom are suicidal, with no evidence that his treatment plans actually work, but he seems to receive a steady stream of political victims, announcing they need follow up care, keeping them at the hospital instead of allowing them to be arrested and hoisted off to jail.  His wife, Vittoria, played by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, usually seen in French films but seen here early in her career in Italian, is suffering from postpartum depression, a condition little was known about at the time, with no maternal feelings, along with an intense fear of intimacy with the newborn, who refuses her milk, requiring the breast feeding services of a wet nurse, leaving her emotionally devastated by the rejection, showing a range of conflicting emotions, like disgust, helplessness, hope, and also jealousy at the ease with which someone else nourishes her child.  While examining the subject of motherhood, this is essentially a story of human exploitation, juxtaposing the personal conflicts of the characters with the class conflict looming in the background, exposing the cultural divide between men and women, or wealth and poverty, giving the film an operatic feel, continuing an underlying Bellocchio theme that madness is the ultimate form of rebellion, as if emanating out of Marat/Sade.     

Santana also steals the most memorable image in the film, where twenty or so nursing mothers are lined up, each unclad from the waist up so the prospective employer can examine them as if choosing a woman at a bordello.  Dr. Mori chooses Annetta (Maya Sansa), who he may have seen in a railway station earlier in the film amongst handcuffed subversives about to be deported, where she left an unforgettable impression.  Against all advice, as her husband is a teacher jailed for subversion, a political activist demanding “freedom,” of all things, he chooses her anyway, perhaps mesmerized by her beauty, though he refuses to acknowledge his fascination with her, a counter to his straight-laced rationalism.  Easily the most difficult sacrifice demanded of her is being forced to live without her own newborn son (sneaking out undetected on occasion to care for him), but Annetta takes to the baby immediately, providing the natural intimacy missing from the real mother, who can’t bear to touch the newborn, which only inflames Vittoria’s resentment, who wants her sent away immediately.  But this irrational conflict contrasts against the health improvements of the baby, who also sleeps more peacefully now and is gaining weight.  Vittoria, however, remains hateful of the woman who has maternally taken her place, making her feel unappreciated and unnecessary, instilling tones of psychological tension while upsetting the power dynamic in their aristocratic home.  Dr. Mori has his medical practice to keep him busy, so all he’s really concerned about is the health of the baby.  Told against a backdrop of leftist demonstrations, their comfortable upper middle-class existence, seemingly far from the troubles, contrasts with the violent social upheaval taking place on the streets outside, with Annetta having more than a passive interest, as her inner life and bold curiosity about such things are completely ignored by her employer, yet that unseen presence is a driving force of the film.  The son of a lawyer and a schoolteacher, Bellocchio had a strict Catholic upbringing in a bourgeois home, training briefly as an actor, while studying philosophy in Milan before switching to film school in Rome and London, establishing a career steeped in Italian history, spanning more than half a century, where he has a tendency to make defiantly anti-authoritarian films.  At the time of release, a tagline for the film was “for Marxists or romantics or both at the same time.”

Another film that the Catholic Church described as “blasphemous,” the centerpiece is a letter written to Annetta from her husband in prison, which Vittoria initially conceals from her, finding it odd that someone would be sent a letter knowing the recipient was illiterate.  Annetta asks for help learning to read and write, but Vittoria ignores the request, as does Dr. Mori, who initially tells her, “You express yourself with love.  You don’t need to learn how to write,” but eventually succumbs to her charms and makes time for her, which are some of the more tender scenes in the film, especially the way he gently guides her hand as she’s learning to write, moments filled with passion, providing an erotic texture.  But the letter itself changes the dynamics of the film.  When Dr. Mori reads the letter out loud, which urges Annetta to remain liberated and free, to never settle for convention, to remain passionate in love and in her convictions, both can’t help but be impressed by the letter’s contents, which are not the thoughts of a political agitator, but a man who refuses to be anything less than a free soul on this earth and pleads with his wife to be the same, especially because they want a better future for their own young child.  Unlike the rigid superficiality of Vittoria, who prefers strict obedience from the servants, showing no regard for them whatsoever, as in her eyes they are an inferior class, Dr. Mori is more flexible, expressing a tolerance and even a kind benevolence for others.  When Annetta asks him to help her write a response, he’s at first reluctant, thinking her husband wrote such a strong letter.  “You are strong (Tu sei forte),” she tells him, an unusual moment where both classes are regarding one another with equanimity, showing appreciation and mutual respect, something that is clearly missing in the violent street protests raging outside.  While the pace of the film is exasperatingly slow, the camerawork by Giuseppe Lanci is impressive, especially working in dim, underlit conditions where they tried to shoot under natural conditions, much of it by candlelight, reminiscent of Kubrick’s BARRY LYNDON (1975).  Of note, Dr. Mori’s medical partner, a man questioning the worth of medicine and who eventually walks side by side with the demonstrators, taking one of the mental patients with him, is none other than the director’s son and producer, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio.

Dormant Beauty (Bella addormentata)

DORMANT BEAUTY (Bella addormentata)         C              

Italy  France  (115 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Marco Bellochio

A grim, depressingly downbeat, and emotionally unsatisfying effort from Bellocchio, who was so distraught that the film didn’t win any awards at the 2012 Venice Film Festival that he announced he would never bring another film to Venice, while Jury member and fellow Italian director Matteo Garrone vowed never to serve on a jury again for an Italian film festival.  This is nothing new, as in 2010 under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, his Italian culture minister Sandro Bondi threatened to take over the festival because the judges (led by Quentin Tarantino) awarded no prizes to Italian films, claiming since the festival is financed by the state he should be able to hand-pick the jury, a move that was quickly rejected by the festival.  Ousted by the Berlusconi government in 2002, Alberto Barbera was reinstated as the Festival Director in 2012, where after all the headlines in the national press focusing on Italian films, it must have come as a big surprise to Italian filmmakers who felt they had stacked the deck in favor of their films.  It’s extremely disingenuous, however, to inflict nationalistic sentiments at an international film festival, where only 9 French films, by the way, have been awarded the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Festival since 1939, only once in the last 25 years, so that’s actually what makes it such an attractive and world prestigious event.  While Bellocchio has been nominated for the Venice Golden Lion three times to go along with six Palme D’Or nominations at Cannes, he’s been shut out from taking the top prize, though he was awarded a lifetime achievement award at Venice in 2011.  No Italian film has won the Golden Lion at Venice since 1988, which may not say a lot about Italian films, but it speaks volumes for the credibility of the festival itself.  Why prestigious Italian artists are intent on undermining Venice and turning it into a provincial festival makes no sense, so Bellocchio and Garrone, both well known and respected international directors, only look foolish, where they’re apparently buying into the outdated Berlusconi propaganda.  For what it’s worth, only one Italian film has been nominated as one of the five finalists in the Academy Award Best Foreign Film category since Roberto Benigni’s LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL in 1998, so Italian films have not exactly taken the world by storm in the past decade or so as they did in the 50’s and 60’s.   

Bellocchio’s last film VINCERE (2009), however, was one of his best, a gorgeously powerful historical drama documenting the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini as seen through the eyes of the mother of his firstborn son, born out of wedlock, so when Mussolini rose to power, both were secretly whisked away and sent to live in asylums throughout Mussolini’s regime, eventually dying in confinement.  The film certainly casts a shadow on the moral depravity of Italian leadership through World War II, where the parallel to Berlusconi’s own extensive record of moral hypocrisy and criminal conduct does not go unnoticed.  DORMANT BEAUTY attempts to examine another moral issue making headlines in the Italian press, namely what to do with coma patients that show no sign of brain activity, where the argument is whether they are actually dead, kept breathing by life support, or in a state of sleep where they might one day miraculously recover.  Much like the 2001 Terri Schiavo case in the United States, right-to-life religious groups, led by the Catholic Church, believed she was still alive, while her own husband wished to remove the life support system after 8-years in a coma but was prevented by government involvement, prolonging the case until exhausting all judicial avenues four years later.  Italy had a similar public debate over the Eluana Englaro case in 2009, where after 17-years in a coma from a car accident the father chose to remove his daughter from life support, but the Berlusconi government and the Catholic Church aligned themselves to prevent him from doing it, initiating legal challenges and going public on all the Berlusconi-owned Italian newspapers and extensive TV channels, including three national and several private stations, including RAI, which is one of the producers of the film, in an attempt to convince the public this is paramount to murder.  The effect was so extensive that the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission in the Northeast province where this film was shot actually dissolved its own organization hoping to block financing for the film, but they are also listed as one of the production companies. 

Without offering any backstory, which in this case necessitates confusion or is playing strictly to an Italian audience, the film, co-written by the director, unfortunately assumes familiarity with the case, where after a decade of court decisions strictly prohibiting any action, in 2009 Eluana’s father is finally given the legal right to remove life support.  However, the nuns caring for Eluana since 1994 are seen on television making a public appeal to continue taking care of her, believing she is still alive despite her father’s contention that she was already dead, forcing the father to move her to a private nursing facility, which is where the film begins.  Despite the court decision, a right-wing crusade led by Berlusconi and the Vatican, along with a well-financed media campaign, promote the idea that Eluana’s father is murdering his daughter, the view of the Church, further inflamed by Berlusconi’s pronouncement that Eluana is not only alive but capable of bearing a child.  While public opinion suggests more than 80% of Italians support the father’s right, a defiantly outraged minority lead organized demonstrations and candlelight vigils in Eluana’s behalf while the government hastily draws legislation that would impose religious standards over the rights of individuals.  Bellocchio interweaves several different melodramatic stories, including a conscience-stricken politician, Toni Servillo as Uliano Beffardi, a first term senator elected from Berlusconi’s party, who already faced this dilemma with his own wife, and while he’s adamantly against the proposed legislation, he’s advised by his party to abstain or disappear, but his bigger fear is losing his religious-minded daughter in the process, Alba Rohrwacher as Maria, who joins the angry public demonstrations, meeting someone she likes on the opposite side of the police barricades, Roberto (Michele Riondini), constantly seen attempting to appease the disturbing actions of his violently angry, mentally ill brother.  The budding romance between the two quickly gets lost in the constantly shifting dynamic.  

In a similar side story that confusingly resembles that of Eluana, where many in the audience may not realize the distinction, Isabelle Huppert, known only as the Divine Mother (as she is called by her son), embodies the position of the church with her own coma-stricken daughter.  A famous actress who abruptly quit her career to assume full-time care of her daughter, alienating her husband and son in the process, she devotes her life to religious devotion, complete with an army of nurses and nuns who look after her in a palatial estate, she gathers her family together to celebrate her daughter’s birthday, where it’s impossible not to hear the constant sound of the life support apparatus doing the breathing for her.  Despite the constant drone, emotions fly fast and furious, especially the near hysterical rants from her spoiled and overly pampered son who seems to be having an absent mother crisis, while the regal countenance of Huppert displays an aristocratic control over her suppressed emotions through a kind of self-imposed noble rigidity, literally imposing her will over every aspect of her daughter’s immaculate care, though she can be heard muttering to herself the lines of Lady Macbeth, unable to get the stain or smell of blood off her hands.   And in yet another storyline, a young doctor (the director’s son, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) gets sucked into the desperate acts of a suicidal drug addict (Maya Sansa) whose beauty betrays her noxious intentions.  While the rest of the hospital staff callously take bets on the hour of Eluana’s eventual death, he keeps a watchful vigil over his new patient’s hospital bed, inexplicably drawn to her fierce desire to end her life, telling her, “You’re free to kill yourself, and I’m free to try to stop you.”  Straining for dramatic cohesiveness and never developing any sense of emotional impact, the mood remains overly detached and downright gloomy throughout, though one has to chuckle at a somewhat surreal scene that comes out of nowhere, taking place in an ancient candle-lit bath house where Roman senators nakedly congregate before important votes, their heads seen floating on the surface of the water with their eyes glued to the television.  Roberto Herlitzka plays a medication dispensing psychiatrist prescribing uppers or downers to depressed politicians.  Bellocchio, however, fails to establish any connecting interest between the underdeveloped characters and storylines, especially with the director’s insistence to continually interrupt the proceedings with the disturbing actions of mentally unstable characters, where the suggestion of romantic possibilities, for instance, feels contrived and downright ludicrous, losing focus and interest in a convoluted structure that feels increasingly disconnected.  While the experience is frustratingly disappointing, what the film does have going for it (besides Huppert) is a superb soundtrack by Carlo Crivelli in an ultra dramatic, percussive-laden adaptation of Brian Eno and David Bowie David Bowie Abdulmajid (Ryko version) - YouTube  (3:30).