A generation Last time I saw Lina Watermiller On the stage of the Buñuel Auditorium at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, surrounded by cheering fans: a petite, alert and beaming figure in his early 90s.She was there because of Pasqualino Settebellezze, or Seven Beauties (1975), her strange and serious comedy masterpiece is on display; as everyone knows, this makes her the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar for best director.
“Seven Beauties” is a ridiculous anti-war satire, starring her favorite actor, Giancarlo Giannini-a handsome but disturbing character. Her movie, perhaps, Just like Marcello Mastroianni Federico Fellini, And Wertmüller was Fellini’s assistant at first. Fellini was her mentor and friend, and in turn, she was a passionate admirer of his life, as a creative life force-however, it can be said that Wertmuller had more sharp and violent attitudes against the Italian soul after the war. Subversive argument.
The seven beauties for whom she wrote the original script can be compared with Günter Grass’s “The Tin Drum”. Giannini plays Pasqualino Frafuso, a fool-although not an innocent or holy person-when he is in the conflict-ravaged landscape of World War II, he will expose himself as a conceited man, a coward, even a Rapist.The so-called arrogant masculinity of protecting his seven sisters Beauty In any sense.Pasqualino was sent to a mental hospital for killing a pimp taken away by his sister (and dismembering the body and distributing parts of it) Italy In a suitcase) but was eventually released for military service-he was sent to a Nazi concentration camp in this capacity, where he grotesquely tried to seduce female commanders and was forced to experience a panto’s version of horror similar to evil Terribly tortured Sophie’s choice. When he finally returned to his home in Naples, he naturally found that his seven sisters and his mother had succumbed to the shame that frightened him.
Talking about classic movies (or books or TV shows) that can’t be made now is a cliché, but for Seven Beauties, there is not a big enough trigger warning. Wertmüller has shown great guts in the indifference, dirty, cynical, well-planned shock and offense, incorrectness and black comedy hues of her films.It comes from the same mood as Liliana Cavani Night porter (1974) or Marco Ferreri’s La Grande Bouffe (1973). There is a hint of vinegar in the film, which complements its crazy wandering energy and satirizes the nausea of Italian fascism.
Prior to this, Wertmüller began with her indulgent but fascinating black comedy T The Lizards (1963), which was based on the premise that a group of Fellini-style guys were eager to escape from their southern Italy Hometown, and the scripts and performances are very beautiful. The Temptation of Mimi (1972)-Original title: Mimi, a metalworker whose reputation is injured-sets the tone of the vagrancy and sexiness that will develop among the seven beauties; the terrible metaphor of sexual assault and the giggling spectacle of homophobia. Giancarlo Giannini is Mimi, a worker who was fired because of his so-called communist sympathy, and his eyes made him involved in mob violence and official corruption.
Love and Anarchy (1973) also confuses political satire with sex to create chaos: Giannini is an anarchist who conspired to murder Mussolini before World War II. Swept away (1974) is a wide-ranging comedy satire about a wealthy woman trapped on a deserted island with her missing crew member, played by Giannini; their respective capitalism and communism The conflict of beliefs turned into a sex spark. (This is a heartbreaking remake of Guy Ritchie in 2002, starring Madonna and Adriano Giannini-the son of Giancarlo.)
By the time Wertmüller Blue-collar workers and hairdressers in the vortex of sex and politics In 1996, her thoughts and style almost imitated herself. But her vitality and her relentless interest in absurd sex and male sexuality—and her fierce political skepticism—make her an exciting thread in European cinema.
