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)

Happy As Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice)

Director Alice Rohrwacher

Director Alice Rohrwacher flanked by actor Adriano Tardioli (left) and Luca Chikovani (right)

Sisters Alice Rohrwacher (left) and Alba Rohrwacher (right)

Actress Alba Rohrwacher

Writer/Director Alice Rohrwacher winning Best Screenplay award at Cannes

HAPPY AS LAZZARO (Lazzaro Felice)                             B                    

Italy  France  Switzerland  Germany  (128 mi)  2018  d:  Alice Rohrwacher    Tempesta [Italy]

Unlike her earlier work, The Wonders (Le meraviglie) (2014), which felt so light and effortless (both shot on 16mm by French cinematographer Hélène Louvart), this is stridently manipulative and unappealing, heavily steeped in religious allegory, becoming an overly exploitive film about the evils of exploiting the poor, that becomes, sad to say, wrenchingly overdramatic and misguided, using magical realism not to suggest wonder or delight (though some apparently buy into it), but to suggest that human behavior is the same no matter what time period, as the rich will still exploit the poor in any historical era.  While it may be well intentioned, it’s a major disappointment considering how well acclaimed this film has become, winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes, though Hirokazu Koreeda’s Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku) (2018), which won the Palme d’Or as Best Film, has a particularly gifted screenplay, which uniquely plays into that film’s appeal, while the screenplay here is overwritten and overwrought.  That was the beauty of her earlier film, as it felt so natural and authentic, actually creating a bit of magic and wonder, but this one’s hard to take and even harder to believe, suggesting, to put it simply, that we’re all saps as we’re so easily duped by false narratives about the power of the rich, somehow believing their lives are better because they have money and status, but really what separates the rich from the poor is that the rich have no moral conscience, believing it is their birthright to be rich, so lying and exploiting the poor is part of their heritage.  It’s what they do for a living.  With that in mind, despite the effort to indict current social ills, this is a terribly difficult film to appreciate, as inevitably the poor keep feeding into the cynical instincts of the rich, allowing themselves to continually believe the lie, even as they sink deeper into poverty.  Is there no hope?  Not in this film, which felt darker and more fatalistic than any Béla Tarr film.  Yet this was the choice for Best Film at the Chicago Film Festival, which has never been particularly adventurous in their awards, rarely picking the best films, which are often determined by which way the wind blows at the time, choosing subject matter that feels appropriate to the times, though this is likely true of all festival juries, including Cannes, which remains a hot subject for viewers and critics alike to scrutinize at length.  A word about the Rohrwacher sisters, however, as they continue to be an absolute delight, with one sister, Alice, as the writer/director, while the other sister, Alba, always appears in a leading role.  They work so well together that their underlying spirit is always on the same wavelength, literally exuding commonality (in terms of themes and beliefs) and camaraderie (a loving generosity), as they feel inseparable.  Usually it’s a joy to watch them work together, where everyday kindness can be elevated to supreme heights, offering a sense of triumph over the prevailing moral hypocrisy, and when Alba is onscreen there’s always a bit of magic in the air, elevating the material, and this is no different, but the screenplay that is being lauded actually constricts and suffocates the life right out of this film, where at least part of the problem is there are simply no appealing characters.      

Bearing a strange similarity to Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963), but without all the extravagance, though striving throughout to be an Olmi film, like THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS (1978), among the best representations onscreen of a peasant class working the fields, but lacking the gravity and authenticity of his films, not to mention his command as a director, but this is, at heart, a film about the poor, as the camera continually follows them around, making them the focus of the film.  Told in two parts, the past and the present, many of the characters appear in both sections, where the effects of time have revealed unalterable changes in their lives, except one selfless Christ-like figure, viewed as a saint, Lazzaro (Adriano Tardioli), a mysterious creature viewed as a simpleton, exploited by others and routinely denigrated, who is exactly the same in both time periods, not aging a bit, like Lazarus, rising from the dead, where he becomes the mirror of the evolving world around him, reflecting back to viewers an unfiltered understanding, as there isn’t an ounce of cynicism in his character, a good man who is incapable of lying or doing anything bad, as he is pure innocence at heart.  People seem to swoon over this character’s presence, offering deep hidden meanings, but my guess is they are projecting their own religious values and sentiments, making him something astonishingly new, yet, haven’t goodness and innocence been around since the dawn of time?  Are those characteristics remarkable enough, however, to move resolute power?  Do they have the power to end the cynicism that reeks in authoritarian regimes or heavy-handed patriarchal societies that seem to enjoy wiping out any thought of social justice?  In truth, it would get trounced by abusive power.  End of story.  So why all the hoopla about this film?  Part of it is Alice Rohrwacher herself, a symbol of optimism and moral integrity, where perhaps she is being rewarded for having the audacity to challenge these age-old perceptions of social inequities, the same ones ascribed by Olmi and others, like Bertolucci’s epic 1976 drama entitled 1900, where the lower class always gets the short end of the stick.  While people may be gushing at her use of magical realism, which can be extremely effective and influential, both in cinema and literary circles, but the pertinent question to be asked is whether it works here?  And my contention is a resounding no.  Especially the way this film ends, with no ambiguity whatsoever.  It matches Dostoyevsky’s essay on The Grand Inquisitor, articulated in The Brothers Karamazov, suggesting that if Christ returned today, in today’s cynical world, that he would not be recognized, that organized religion would immediately disavow his importance and reject his message, as they’re insistent upon teaching their version of the Christ parable, with a supreme authority that remains unchallenged.  They’re simply not capable of adjusting to a new living Christ.  

In the opening moments, set in an Italian countryside that feels timeless, Lazzaro is utterly indistinguishable from the others, blending into the whole with complete anonymity, where these peasant sharecropping farmers are so poor that they have to move their lone lightbulb from room to room, forced to endure backbreaking work and simple pleasures, as they work in the tobacco fields all day.  Lazzaro is simply one of them, used to being asked to do the heavy work, or the jobs no one else wants to do, which he does willingly, without complaint, as he’s a man of humble origins, as are they all, born into their predicament.  Yet the opening scene is a musical confession of love, viewed as a special occasion, getting everyone’s spirits raised, as all get a sip of wine in a joyous tribute to the happy couple that plans to get married and leave the farm, earning a better life in the city.  But before a single day passes, their spirits are dashed by the reality of the situation, as they have to ask permission of the Marchesa, the tobacco baroness (Nicoletta Braschi, wife of Roberto Benigni) who owns Inviolata, the place where they work, as they all work for her, and no one leaves until she says so, with people scoffing at the idea that will ever happen, so get used to the idea that she owns these workers, whose services belong to her, just like a slave plantation.  When her chosen henchman, Nicola (Natalino Balasso), gathers them all around and tallies up the wages, each one of them is consumed by debts owed, making it impossible for any of them to leave, as the system is rooted in thievery, where they live in a collective purgatory of generational debt.  As the landowner, the detestable baroness lives in a big manor, surrounded by plenty of servants, whose impulse is to exploit the workers at every opportunity (believing they in turn will exploit others), as otherwise they’d show no respect, whose mantra is “Human beings are beasts.”  Along with her is a bored and perpetually unhappy teenage son, Tancredi (Luca Chikovani), a self-centered lout who sulks around the house all day smoking cigarettes, having bleached his hair blond, showing signs of rebellion and dissension in the ranks, but that’s only to get some attention from his unloving mother, who has little use for him.  So he runs off in the fields and joins Lazzaro, pulling him away from work, sarcastically calling him a half-brother, offering him a slingshot as a gift, but then uses him in a secret plan to report his own kidnapping, hoping to extort money from his own mother.  But she’s too sly to fall for it, leaving him high and dry, exactly where he was in the first place, an unloved son with a repugnant mother.  But Lazzaro reveals a secret hiding place up on the mountain, away from view, which becomes Tancredi’s new residence, remaining out of sight from the others.

Tancredi’s plot inadvertently brings in the police, which exposes the Marchesa as a fraud, an aristocrat who’s been keeping her workers as unpaid slaves, ignoring the fact the old feudal shareholding system was declared illegal years ago (inspired by a real-life incident, as sharecropping was outlawed in 1980), so the police arrive and relocate the bewildered and dumbfounded workers to a nearby city, but then abandons them, literally dumping them in a parallel universe of urban sprawl that is completely unfamiliar to them, but more recognizable to viewers as the modern age, where many of them end up homeless and destitute, living by the railroad tracks, scrounging for what little food they can get, mostly surviving by petty crimes.  It’s only here that Alba Rohrwacher becomes recognizable as Antonia (a former maid of the Marchesa’s played by a different actress), joining forces with Ultimo (Sergi López), the leader of this pack of misfits, where they are unabashed street hustlers, pulling any scam they can.  In this strange new universe, Lazzaro arrives, exactly as he was, not having aged a bit, while the others are clearly older, but only by a decade or so.  Antonia is at first dumbstruck, not knowing what to do, but she brings him along on all their heists, though openly hides their intentions, so he doesn’t grow suspicious, where he becomes one of the pack, exactly as he was before, quickly surprising them all in his own natural abilities to chip in what he can to help.  It’s a bit amusing, if not absurd, as Lazzaro remains completely innocent, incapable of understanding what they’re really up to, where he becomes their moral conscience, as least for Antonia, who values his kindness and good will, not wanting to acknowledge her own failings.  Incredibly, Lazzaro runs into an older Tancredi (Tommaso Ragno), more humbled now that he’s served some jail time, who’s welcomed with friendship back to the gang, some of whom he recognizes from before, making this awkward and bizarre, as he doesn’t understand Lazzaro’s strange and mysterious transformation either.  However his sarcastic nature is still intact, loving to play jokes on people, still conveying an air of aristocracy, as if the class system is still in effect, so they see him as he was before, even as he may be as downtrodden as they are, but he hides it well.  It’s inconceivable for Lazzaro to view Tancredi as connected with anything villainous, picking up right where they left off, as half-brothers, only seeing the best in everyone, where wickedness simply doesn’t exist.  This gets a bit silly and uncomfortable after a while, as truth is continually overlooked, cloaked in the flowery language of the aristocracy, which is cynical at heart, using lies and deception, pretending friendly motives when all they want is to take as much as they can get, and once they have no further use for you, you’re expendable.  The lack of any real human connection here slowly goes off the rails, as a certain ugliness creeps in, as it inevitably does, especially for the unfortunate.  While they may all yearn for freedom, none of them find it, as in the end they’re all exploited, perhaps even worse than they were at the beginning when they felt like a family, as there seems to be more distance between people and less understanding, less empathy, and less love.  That is, unless you believe in the unbelievable, which humans happen to call faith.