(Review of Vermiglio; and It's Raining Men)
VERMIGLIO.
Having established herself with the documentaries, Teachers (2008) and Nadea and Sveta (2012), Maura Delpero made an impressive start to her fictional career with Maternal (2019). The theme of motherhood also proves central to her sophomore outing, Vermiglio, which is being previewed ahead of its release by CinemaItaliaUK. In addition to drawing on Delpero's own family history, this study of rustic life in the shadow of the Alps in the mid-1940s also evokes the neo-realist precision of Luchino Visconti and Ermanno Olmi. Surely, there can be no higher praise.
Schoolteacher Cesare Graziadei (Tommaso Ragno) had nine children with his wife, Adele (Roberta Rovelli). They sleep several to a bed in a comfortable house on the other side of the snowy woods from the school, where children of all ages receive the same lessons after morning prayers and exercise. Strict and sonorous, the white-haired Cesare presides over the table, while Adele ladels out the cupfuls of warm milk that are eaten for breakfast with hunks of dipping bread.
It's a simple lifestyle, with daughter Lucia (Martina Scrinzi) rising each morning to milk the cow. She has taken a shine to Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a Sicilian deserter who is beiing allowed to hide out in the cowshed after helping the wounded Attilio (Santiago Fondevila Sancet) back home to his mother, Cesira (Orietta Notari), who is Cesare's sister. Some in the village despise them for fleeing the Germans. But Cesare insists there would be fewer wars if everyone embraced cowardice.
Whenever the opportunity arises, adolescent daughter Ada (Rachele Potrich) hides behind the mirrored door of the wardrobe to touch herself. She always prays for forgiveness afterwards and is cross when younger sister Flavia (Anna Thaler) kneels beside her. She is the brightest child and often sneaks into her father's study to peruse the books. Occasionally, she has to hide under the desk when he comes in to play records on his wind-up gramophone, but this only adds to the thrill of learning in secret.
A dance and a torchlight ceremony are held to celebrate St Lucia's feast day. Lucia's friend, Virginia (Carlotta Gamba), draws gasps of disapproval for her unladylike behaviour, as she gulps down some wine. But Piero is refused a drink and Lucia follows him out to the well to give him a chaste compensatory kiss. Cesare is worried that son Dino (Patrick Gardner) is drinking too much, while Adele is concerned by his baby brother Giovanni's persistent cough.
Cesira recommends wrapping the child in cabbage leaves, but the doctor warns Cesare that the boy will die. Dino tells his younger brother, Pietrin (Enrico Panizza), that Giovanni will fly to heaven with the wings on his soul, but he is unable to answer when pushed to explain what he means. At Christmas, Pietrin asks permission to leave the table to show Pietro the crib that Dino has carved. Lucia notes how kind he is to her sibling and cherishes the heart note that he had passed to her outside church. Flavia and Ada discuss its significance in bed and deduce that he drew the shape because he's illiterate. But this doesn't bother Lucia, as she has fallen in love.
Cesare learns of the note when Flavia writes about it in an essay on letters and he tries to reach out to Pietro when he comes to an adult learning class and they discuss a poem about dying soldier. Ada sees Pietro and Lucia kissing outside the barn and reprimands herself in the notebook she hides under her pillow about the punishments she devises each time she goes behind the wardrobe door. She says nothing of this to her sisters, but they gossip in bed at night and Ada strokes Flavia's wrist with a feather as Lucia describes how she holds Pietro's hand. When Flavia reveals that their father keeps secrets hidden in a locked desk drawer, Ada opines that men are secretive and suggests that those who return from war keep the most to themselves.
Cesare realises that his daughters are bright, but can only afford to send one to school. He chooses Flavia, but Ada is keen to continue studying and tells Don Giulio (Leone Gubert) in confession. She has reached the stage of lying with her face in chicken poop because of her `sins' and Flavia wonders why she doesn't just say `Hail Marys' instead. Lucia sleeps with Pietro, who asks Cesare for her hand in marriage during a lesson on hopes for the future.
Spring comes and Cesare takes the children into the woods to pick flowers for Lucia's wedding. Adele realises she's pregnant when she measures her for her old dress, but Lucia still doesn't understand what she's supposed to do in bed when she discusses her nuptials on her last night sharing with her sisters. She's touched when her younger brothers recite a blessing at the altar and enjoys dancing with her groom at the outdoor reception. But Flavia notices how dismissive everyone is of the tomboyish Virginia and she follows her into the cowshed to see her smoking.
Virginia urges Ada to rebel and steal cigarettes from her father's desk. However, the discovery of a book of pornographic postcards in a drawer leads her to sin again and her self-inflicted penance is to eat chicken poop. As she emerges from the coop, she hears Cesare tutoring Flavia and realises that her chances of staying in school are over. Much to the pregnant Adele's annoyance, Cesare buys a recording of Vivaldi's `The Four Seasons' and the children hang on his every word, as he explains the music to them.
The war ends and Pietro asks permission to return to Sicily to let his mother know he's still alive. Lucia has misgivings, but he departs and soon reneges on his promise to write. Ada and Dino also experience disappointment when Cesare gives them their report cards and breaks the news that Ada's schooldays are over and that the failing Dino needs to grow up and take responsibility for himself. Alone at home, Ada prays for forgiveness for being jealous of Flavia and accepts that she is not as special as she had hoped she would be.
Adele is angry with Cesare for making Dino feel small in front of the class, but he is unrepentant. Indeed, when Adele gives birth to another son and thanks Dino for bringing her flowers, she admonishes Cesare for never bringing her a single bloom when he accuses Dino of stealing from a neighbour's garden. He is furious with her for disrespecting him in front of their children, but Lucia still trusts him when he reassures her that letters often go missing and that she should be patient with Pietro. Even Ada says nothing about his collection of nude pictures, as she finds them as tantalising as Virginia, with whom she has regular assignations to watch her smoke while sitting on the family donkey.
She's saddened when Virginia and her mother leave for Chile, despite Dino reassuring his siblings that nothing would change. His brothers worship him because he once escaped from a bear, but he is frustrated because he fears he'll be stuck at home and condemned to working in the fields. Lucia is also becoming increasingly concerned about Pietro and even Cesare confides to Adele that the silence is ominous.
Shortly afterwards, they spot a story in a newspaper that Pietro has been murdered by his wife in Sicily. Cesira blames Attilio for bringing him to the village and not knowing that he was a bigamist. He is only grateful to Pietro for saving his life, but the rest of the family is crushed by the news. Flavia decides that men have it easier than women and asks Ada if she would like to be male. She replies that she would like to be a priest because everyone listens to them.
Attilio apologises to Lucia after she hears Cesira grumbling about her being a burden now she can't work and has given them another mouth to feed. She lets her mother nurse Antonio, which she often leaves to cry because she feels nothing for him. Meanwhile, Ada gets frustrated because her father is too preoccupied to tutor her and she fears that getting her first period will prevent her from going to school in the nearby town. However, seeing her sister so upset, Flavia decides to stay and help her with the baby. But Ada (who is now aware of Cesare's limitations) points out that she needs to leave because their father only knows how to teach young children.
Having left Antonio at the convent where Ada is now a novice, Lucia travels alone to Sicily. The local priest gives her the letters that Pietro had never posted and she sees his wife and son in the village. Returning home, she bonds with her baby before leaving to work in town. Cesare gets a letter from Ada at her new school, while Adele tidies up the girls' bedroom, with a lingering hand on her belly suggesting that she is pregnant again. Life goes on - as, indeed, it does in audio behind the closing credit crawl.
Impeccably played by a combination of experienced and non-professional performers, this is a compelling study of the status of women within Italian society that will have far too much relevance for many modern audiences. Such is the finesse of Maria Delpero's writing and direction, however, that there's nothing laboured or sententious about either the storyline or presentation of the themes.
Environment and circumstances already limit the prospects of Cesare and Adele's daughters. But they are further hindered by the benevolent dictatorship of their father, a big fish in a small pond, who gets to make the defining decisions about their lives in spite of his own intellectual and emotional shortcomings. He's played with suitably inflated dignity by Tommaso Ragno. Yet, he's not a bad man. Admittedly, his views on women are far from enlightened, embodied as they are in the book he keeps in a drawer that is locked with a key he carelessly hides under a rug in his study. But he opposes the war and seems to set greater store by Vivaldi than Mussolini. Nevertheless, his skills as both a husband and a parent fall short, while Ada recognises his limitations as an educator. Cesare is aware of such flaws, but his situation suits him too much for him to do anything about them.
His deficiencies doom Dino and probably his younger brothers. But Flavia and Ada (who is superbly played by Rachele Potrich) manage to find their own escape routes, while Lucia is astute enough to realise that her misfortunes have given her options. Even Adele finds it within herself to stand up to her husband and criticise his decision to spend their restricted resources on records rather than food. But she also loves him enough to offer solace when he's confronted by the consequences of his inadequacies.
Such is the intensity of Delpero's focus on the Graziadei household that it's not easy to get a hold on wider life in Vermiglio or whether it's a microcosm of Fascist Italy or an exception to it. Lucia's excursion offers no clues, while Pietro and Attilio have been too stunned by their experience of the cruel world to provide any insights. Contrast this with the way in which Edgar Reitz allowed outside events to impinge upon daily life in Schabbach in Heimat (1984). But Delpero still draws parallels between attitudes across the generations. Although a little more evidence of the harshness of existence outside the family might not have gone amiss, she also creates an entirely credible milieu from the deft accumulation of acutely observed details, with the aid of production designers Pirra Jesús Lorenzo and Vito Giuseppe Zito, as well as costumier Andrea Cavalletto and cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, who reinforces the intimacy of the bedtime chats with the same finesse he brings to the austere views of the mountains that loom over the enclosed community and isolate it across the changing seasons from what lies beyond.
IT'S RAINING MEN.
Caroline Vignal got every call right in debuting with My Donkey, My Lover and I (2020). She can hardly be blamed, therefore, for rehiring Laure Calamy in hoping that lightning would strike twice with It's Raining Men. Unfortunately, it doesn't and this slightly shabby romcom turns out to be yet another vehicle that fails to do justice to the talents of an actress who should be the French Olivia Colman.
Dentist Iris Beaulieu (Laure Calamy) has a nice life with husband, Stéphane (Vincent Elbaz), and their two daughters, Anna (Zoé Richard) and Lili (Daphné Crépieux). At a parent-teacher night, she mentions to a friend that she's not had sex for four years and an eavesdropping woman (Olivia Côte) mentions the DeeLove app for married people seeking a fling. Bowled over by the idea of every man on her Métro train being a potential partner, Iris signs up and stipulates that all meetings will be one-offs at the man's place.
A café rendezvous with Julien (Sylvain Katan) proves hugely awkward, but Iris enjoys it and is soon distracted from work with assistant Nuria (Suzanne De Baecque) by the notion that every buzz on her phone could be from her next lover. She is barely home at night before she's checking contacts and Julien tuts in her imagination as she takes bra selfies in the bathroom.
When she meets up with Sylvain (Laurent Poitrenaux), she calls Stéphane to fib about going to the pictures and has a nice time with a recent divorcé, who urges her to explore her possibilities and warns her how addictive bed-hopping can become. She gurgles about polyamory being an exciting concept on returning home and claiming that the friend she went to the pictures with is trying it out. Stéphane is too busy with work to be more than mildly amused by Iris's giddy enthusiasm, but she is hooked on the rush - even of singing along with the cabby on the way home from Sylvain's apartment
With Nuria constantly having to rearrange appointments, Iris hooks up with more beaux. After a tryst with Aladin (Ismaël Sy Savané), she is so turned on that she spontaneously starts singing `It's Raining Men' and passers-by join her in a dance routine around the concourse of the apartment complex. Iris is so swept along by the thrill of discovery that she upsets Anna during a lunchtime discussion about a class on the importance of saying `no' by telling her to stop being so boring and start flirting with boys. Stéphane is taken aback by such rash advice to a 15 year-old, but Iris accuses him of being stuffy.
Storming out, she keeps a rendezvous with No Vanilla (Alexandre Steiger).She has no idea what his alias means and gets the giggles when he tries to tie her up and fit a ball gag in her mouth. An afternoon session with a young man (Nicolas Godart) proves much more to her liking. But she loses track of time and has a row with the exasperated Nuria and a showdown with Julien when he turns up at her surgery. Rushing to meet Stéphane (who is beginning to wonder what's going on), Iris is late for the school play in which Lili is playing God.
Anna and Stéphane are cross with her and stay at the after-party. He gets home drunk and decides to sleep on the sofa. But Iris makes him smile with some saucy texts and she is thrilled when he sends her a heart emoji. At work the next day, she patches things up with Nuria and Francis Lai's Oscar-winning theme from Claude Lelouch's Un homme est une femme (1966) plays over a patient montage. That night, Iris and Stéphane have a date at a bar and she returns home to find him waiting in bed for her. As they have sex for the first time in aeons, the camera pulls away to Iris's phone vibrating on the table next to his.
While many a Hollywood movie would insist on Iris being caught out and having to learn harsh lessons before being granted hard-earned redemption, this very Gallic comedy allows the empowered and guilt-free fortysomething to sow her wild oats and reap the benefits without having to face any recriminations. Such is Laure Calamy's infectiously genial screen presence that few would begrudge Iris her little adventure. But her rite of passage involves a number of risks that some may consider reckless, particularly when it comes to meeting online strangers in their own homes rather than in a public place. Obviously, the dictates of the plot require Iris to throw caution to the wind in order to rediscover herself. However, this doesn't always make for comfortable viewing.
It also means that Calamy has the only character who comes remotely close to being in any way rounded. Even Stéphane is a cipher, who is too preoccupied with working from home to notice his wife's increasingly erratic behaviour. Her paramours are essentially stick figures, while Vignal wastes the chance to make more of Suzanne De Baecque in Rossy De Palmaesque support. But she passes some amusing comments on modern family life and the ease with which mobile phones can come between a person and real life.
Benjamin Esdraffo 's score is jolly, while cinematographer Martin Roux makes the most of the Parisian locations. Editor Annette Dutertre puts together a couple of amusing montages. But the musical interlude falls flat, despite Calamy's brio, which, at times, is all this run-of-the mill and rather misjudged romp has going for it - although its French title, Iris et les hommes, brings to mind Jean Renoir's vastly superior Ingrid Bergman vehicle, Elena et les hommes (1956).
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