Un Progetto Speciale di Khristine Hopkins

Part 2:
Movies starring celebrated Italian actor Marguerita Buy

Mia Madre (“My Mother”)

It’s a brilliant blend of warmth, charm and many emotions. Middle-aged social-realist film director Marguerita (played by Margherita Buy) tries to maintain control as her beloved mother Ada is dying, and ridiculously inept American actor Barry Huggins (John Turturro) is arriving to star in her latest film.  She has recently broken up with her live-in boyfriend, Vittorio, one of her actors, who tells her that there is a reason relationships are so difficult for her. No one can do anything well enough for her. She tells her actors and her staff that they are totally incompetent, waving her arms, shouting “cut”, while giving them vague instructions which leave them looking completely bewildered. In other words, for Marguerita, “Il meglio è nemico del bel bene” (the perfect is the enemy of the good). And now she has Barry on her hands, with his protestations of having worked with Stanley Kubrick on multiple occasions, and his hysterical temper tantrums. In one fantastic scene, Marguerita and Barry have a shouting match in front of the whole crew in the middle of a scene, and if you don’t yet know the meaning of the word “stronzo,” you will have figured it out by the end of the scene.

While she tries to spend as much time with her mother, a retired teacher of classics who is much loved and almost revered by her former students, Marguerita struggles with her guilt, and is torn between all her roles, including being a responsible mother to her lovely and loving teenage daughter Livia. Some of the most touching scenes are between Livia and her dying grandmother, who gently corrects and encourages Livia with her Latin, as the bond between them deepens. Although Marguerita is divorced, she and her former husband are attentive parents, and have put aside whatever differences they had in order to give Livia a secure relationship within her family. 

Nanni Moretti, acclaimed director of this and many other movies, plays Marguerita’s gentle, loving brother. His understated acting, which reveals his profoundly compassionate nature, is central to his relationship with the other characters. They are both devoted to their mother, who entirely deserves their devotion. Giovanni has given up his job in order to do whatever can be done, as Ada lays dying in the hospital, and he fills in for Margherita without doing anything which ought to make her feel guilty. But her own guilt, anxiety, fear and denial show up in her dreams, which blend so much with her waking life that it is sometimes unclear what is dream and what is not. She is a person on her way to an understanding of herself, and of the way she has lived her life, including her effect on others. It is impossible not to like Marguerita and to feel empathy for her, and indeed for all the characters in this beautiful and insightful story. Even Barry Huggins (Turturro) turns out to be unexpectedly endearing!

Trailer: https://youtu.be/6cRTHncxnjMhttps://youtu.be/6cRTHncxnjM

Viaggio Sola (“A Five Star Life”)

(2013) If your dream is to luxuriate in Five Star hotels in exotic locations, while being waited on hand and foot by obsequious attendants, well then, this one’s for you! Hotel inspector Irene (Marguerita Buy) is what is known in hotel circles as a Mystery Guest, unknown to Five Star hotel managers and staff until check-out time, when she reveals herself and passes judgement. From the moment she opens her laptop, pulls on her white gloves, and starts checking off her list, she is a consummate professional. But part of her job is to make sure that guests are treated well no matter who they are. You can just feel Irene’s satisfaction as she castigates a manager for his staff’s snubs of a young newlywed couple who are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the unspoken rules…oh dear, they wore terrycloth “bathrobes” to the pool, not the correct “pool” robes!

When back at home base in Italy, Irene’s most important relationships are with her harried musician sister and musician brother-in-law, her two young nieces, and her best friend and former lover, Andrea (dishy, award winning movie star Stefano Accorsi). Now she finds her sister constantly resentful and angry at her for her lack of commitment, and her seemingly selfish unattached lifestyle, so there is conflict there, and Irene seems confused by the state of affairs. Andrea has now gotten a young woman pregnant, and is confused about what should happen, so he is less available to Irene than he had been, though their relationship is still warm and loving. But these people she loves don’t hesitate to let her know what they think is lacking in her chosen lifestyle. And then a chance meeting at an elegant Berlin hotel with writer Kate Sherman (English actor Lesley Manville in a fascinating cameo), makes her re-examine her life through the lens of intimacy. The fallout from this encounter rattles her, and we can’t help but wonder whether she will find more satisfaction in following the path others point her toward or whether she will continue on the path she now follows. But don’t worry…all will be revealed!

Trailer: https://youtu.be/V8NKaij96Zo

 Not for me, but perhaps for you:

I Giorni Dell’abbandono (“The Days of Abandonment”)

(2018) Although Margherita Buy is brilliant in this movie, the melodrama is so over the top that for my personal tastes, I found it almost unwatchable. Many of you will know the story from Elena Ferrante’s book of the same name. Unsuspecting wife Olga, is dumped by her weak, cowardly, self-absorbed husband Mario (Luca Zingaretti of “Inspector Montalbano” fame) for one of his sexy, young students, leaving her alone with their two children. This may be one of the uglier movie breakups I’ve seen. Swinging from rage to despair and back to rage, Olga loses all sense of self-respect and dignity, and descends into a truly bleak and dark emotional abyss, from which she eventually claws her way back. It was hard for me to take this movie very seriously. Margherita Buy is a great actress, and her gift for subtlety, which I admire so much, was nowhere to be found in this her most recent movie, though many of her other dramatic skills are fully on display. (This one is for lovers of sensational high melodrama!)

Trailer: https://youtu.be/VYnU-9mz31A

Giorni e nuvole (“Days and Clouds”)

(2007) This story of a marriage and the influence of sudden financial loss on a couple’s way of life has moments of great beauty as well as tremendous emotional pain for the protagonists. Filmed in the industrial seaport city of Genoa on the Ligurian coast, this is not a movie in which the glorious beauty of Italy will soften the story’s realism. Genoa has its own presence, which seems rather utilitarian and cold because of the angles from which it is photographed.

Elsa (Margherita Buy) and her husband Michele (Antonio Albanese) are a well-off middle aged couple living in a beautiful apartment, full of valuable art and antiques. Their 20 year old daughter Alice runs an intimate restaurant along with her former boyfriend, and is now living with her new man. But she is close with her parents, and makes frequent appearances at their home. Elsa, in the movie’s opening scene, is showing a slide presentation of an ancient ceiling fresco she is uncovering and restoring, which is well-received by the board of professors who will grant her a higher degree in her field. She joins her young colleagues at the site of the restoration, and it is clear how moved she is by the work, how intuitive she is, and how important this part of her life, this sublime art, is to her. To celebrate her successful completion of her degree, Michele has presented her with an expensive gift and has made her a sumptuous surprise party, filling their large apartment with guests, and even a live band.But Michele has been waiting for Elsa to complete her degree before revealing the sobering truth to her. He has been betrayed by his best friend, the co-owner of his company, and has been unemployed for the past two months, pretending to be at work while hiding out on his boat. Everything must go, their home, their boat, their entire lifestyle must be drastically reduced. Elsa must take low-skill jobs which curtail her restoration project, and Michele must find something, anything, that will bring in money and perhaps lift him from depression and despair. This movie is the story of a couple’s love, and how difficult financial circumstances challenge this love and take it almost to the point of no return. Director Silvio Soldini is responsible for some amazing direction of these fine actors. Some of the minor roles are filled by his “ensemble” actors from previous films (including “Pane e Tulipani,” one of my favorite movies).

Trailer: https://youtu.be/V8NKaij96Zo

Posted May 21, 2020

Part 4:
A masterpiece: Cinema Paradiso

(1989) Just after the end of WWll in the village of Giancaldo on the Island of Sicily there lives a little boy, Salvatore, nicknamed Totò, who falls in love with “the movies.” This is the story of his lifelong enchantment with cinema, as a small child (Salvatore Cascio), as a love-struck adolescent (Marco Leonardi), and as a successful, though lost, middle-aged filmmaker (Jacques Perrin) who finds himself once again. It is also the story of a town’s people, and how their lives are inextricably linked to a building called Cinema Paradiso, where they bellow with laughter, shout each other down, make love, and shed copious tears in a way that is quintessentially Italian.

Cinema Paradiso, an Italian/French co-production, is an Italian movie nevertheless, in the Italian language, and with English subtitles in the version you will most likely see. Two of the lead actors are French (Philippe Noiret and Jacques Perrin) and their lines are dubbed in Italian, although the dubbing is so well done, you’re not likely to notice it. This wonderful, perfect movie, written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, won a string of awards from Cannes to Hollywood, garnering the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The musical score by the brilliant and prolific composer Ennio Morricone (with son Andrea) is so beautiful and so memorable, it will give you an “earworm”…one that you won’t really mind.

The movie begins with a serene view from a window on the coast of Sicily. An anxious, elderly woman is trying to reach her grown son by telephone. The wealthy and successful middle-aged filmmaker Salvatore Di Vita (Jacques Perrin) arrives late in the evening to his grand apartment in Rome and learns of the message his mother has left. His old friend Alfredo has died; the funeral will be held the following day in Giancaldo, Salvatore’s hometown which he has not returned to in thirty years.  The director masterfully uses flashback as a narrative technique to lead us back to the eight-year-old Totò as he emerges from the rubble of war and becomes a young man. One of the curious things about the movie is that there seems to be no attempt to show any continuity of physical resemblance between the three actors playing Salvatore (Totò), and yet it works. 

Totò is perhaps the most beguiling child you may ever see in a movie. He has such a mobile face, full of laughter, mischief, and at times sadness, though it passes quickly for him, as he is on to the next exciting or funny thing. His father is missing in action on the Russian front, and his mother’s emotions swing from angry to grief-stricken. In time, the family learns that the handsome young husband and father has indeed died, leaving behind his image in a couple of photographs. Toto’s true father figure becomes Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), the childless, middle-aged projectionist at the small village movie theater which, apart from the church, is the central gathering place for the people of Giancaldo. Alfredo’s passion for the movies is young Totò’s as well, and the little boy teases and torments the older man until he finally gives in, training the child in the magic of the projection booth. A deep affection between them grows as they face adversity together

One scene beautifully dissolves into another and reveals the teen-aged Totò (Marco Leonardi), and the now blind Alfredo. They rely on each other, and their relationship becomes even closer and more mature. A new theme of romantic love (unrequited, then requited, and then lost) enters the frame as Totò, holding his first amateur movie camera, observes through his lens the arrival of the luminous, refined, and self-contained Elena (Agnese Nano). Their relationship of only six months thrusts him into the next stage of his life, since he has now become acquainted with great joy and deep pain. When he returns for Alfredo’s funeral, we see that the pain of loss has left its imprint on him even as a middle-aged man. It continues to direct the way in which he lives his life until, in the final scene (one of the most beautiful and memorable in movie history), Salvatore is opened once more to an experience of joy. 

This movie is available on DVD at the Provincetown Public Library or through other affiliated CLAMS libraries.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/stLekU5BnbI

Part 7:
Il Commissario Montalbano (”Detective Montalbano”)
1999-present—Montalbano and the Coroner’s Cannoli

The Italians seem to really like television detective/crime series, and there are quite a few that are available on DVD with English subtitles….Inspector Vivaldi, Inspector Nardone, Inspector Coliandro, and even Donna (“Lady”) Detective. Also Inspector Manara, The Bastards of Pizzofalcone, and the Italian remake of Nero Wolfe, all of which will be covered here soon. But most popular, and longest running by far is the Detective Montalbano series, scripted from a seemingly endless well of stories by noted Sicilian author Andrea Camilleri. As I count, Camilleri, who died last year at the age of ninety-three, wrote twenty-seven novels as well as a multitude of short stories featuring Commissario Salvo Montalbano. The popularity of this character even spawned a prequel series, Young Montalbano.

The locations for Camilleri’s imaginary towns of Vigata and Montelusa are a patchwork of several coastal towns and the surrounding country within the southernmost tip of the Island of Sicily. Many of the scenes seem to be filmed early in the morning before the residents are abroad, as there is often an eerie emptiness to the bleached out streets of Ragusa that makes a dramatic backdrop for the action. It’s a strange kind of beauty. The location of Montalbano’s apartment, meant to be the imaginary Marinella, an area of the imaginary Vigata, is actually a beachfront neighborhood in the beautiful town of Punta Secca, complete with lighthouse. Many of the episodes begin with Salvo’s morning swim, and sometimes he finds things we’d rather not find at the beach!  The various towns used for the film locations have greatly increased their income from tourism due to the popularity of the series, and the residents seem to welcome “Montalbano’s pilgrims.”

The Detective Montalbano series has been running for twenty years, with the same lead actor and, for the most part, the same supporting actors, which in itself is completely amazing. They seem so real, partly because they are extremely gifted actors, and partly because we have watched them age over the years in real time. Salvo Montalbano (Luca Zingaretti) is an interesting mix of character traits. He is ever faithful to his long-distance girlfriend Livia, and sees her only intermittently, since she lives far to the north in Genoa. And yet, if she phones him at an inconvenient time (in other words, when he is hungry), he has no problem making up some sad excuse to cheat on her with several cannoli. There have been three actresses who have filled the role of Livia over the years, and in some seasons we only get to hear her voice at the other end of the phone. Though Salvo is a “real tough guy,” he is often at the receiving end of one of Livia’s well-deserved tongue-lashings, from which he emerges both chastened and bewildered (and hungry). He’s a hot-head (though rarely out of control), deeply intelligent, intuitive, and a man of integrity, compassionate, likable, and with great personal charm. But he does, on occasion, display childish self-absorption when it comes to his obsession with food. When his friend Calògero, owner of his favorite local seafood eatery tells him that he will be retiring, Montalbano’s mouth drops open and he responds, “But what about me?” Adding richness and complexity to his character are various dream sequences where, as is often the way with dreams, his deepest fears and his truest desires are revealed.

Salvo’s close friend, and second in command, “Mimi” Augello (Cesare Bocci) is a world-class ladies’ man who too often can’t control his impulses, even becoming entangled with suspects while Salvo does his best to mitigate the risk. Augello is competitive and can be resentful of Montalbano’s authority, which leads him into troubling situations. Detective Fazio (Peppino Mazzotto) is analytical, efficient, loyal, and always has Montalbano’s back. He’s the youngest member of the team, and very appealing. Officer Catarella (Angelo Russo) is the comic relief in each episode. He is a complete bumbler, confusing names, walking into doors, sometimes falling on his face, and can usually be found in a state of hysteria somewhere around the police station. Eventually, he is sent on a computer course and turns out, to his colleagues’ astonishment, to be a computer genius. Though he now has become a useful member of the team, his talent for physical comedy is still front and center.

Many of the crimes Montalbano and his team investigate are fairly dark and brutal. Often the stories revolve around Mafia killings by the Cuffaro and Sinagra families (it is Sicily, after all), as well as sexual violence, so be forewarned. This won’t bother most true aficionados of crime dramas. I’m not one, so if you are more interested in the characters and their relationships, there is also plenty here to sink your teeth into. And well mixed in are scenes that are truly absurd and very funny, leaving Montalbano with a look of stupefaction on his face.  

That director Alberto Sironi, who died in 2019, chose true Sicilians to fill all the secondary roles and those of the extras adds a dimension of verisimilitude unlike what we see in most television series. He had to convince the producers, who feared that Italian viewers would not understand the Sicilian dialect, to allow him to spend months visiting Sicily’s regional theaters to choose the actors. They are really, really good and provide the flavor of the region which would not have been served by “Italian” actors.

You can order all of Andrea Camilleri’s books, the Detective Montalbano DVD series, and Young Montalbano through CLAMS (clamsnet.org). In addition, you can stream the first 28 of the 37 episodes of Detective Montalbano on Hoopla, available to Massachusetts residents with a Boston Public Library free ecard. To get your very own BPL ecard, visit https://www.bpl.org/ecard/.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/222865113?dnt=1&app_id=122963

Part 9:
Pane e Tulipani (“Bread and Tulips”)

2001. Unlike Commissario Montalbano, this is not a series of great depth or great seriousness. It is, on the other hand, terrifically entertaining, loaded with humor, replete with engaging mysteries, sexy (in a PG-13 sort of way), touchingly sentimental, and with an extremely likeable main character, the “dazzling” Luca Manara (it says so on the DVD cover!).

Inspector Manara is a spinoff of a detective series called Una Famiglia in Giallo (A Family in Yellow) which aired for one season of only six episodes on RAI (the national public broadcasting station of Italy). Unfortunately, it’s impossible to find any of those episodes with English subtitles. In the next to last episode of Giallo, actor Guido Caprino appears, and playing only a secondary role, steals the show. He must have “dazzled” the producers to such a degree that they decided to feature him in a new series, Inspector Manara, retaining most of the excellent supporting cast of Una Familglia in Giallo in their previous roles. And fortunately for us, the entire twenty-four episodes of Manara are available with English subtitles on DVD.

Luca Manara (Guido Caprino) is a Sicilian police detective who was recently stationed at his thrilling dream assignment in Milan, but has just been transferred to a small town in Southern Tuscany due to some troublesome behavior on the job (“I didn’t know she was the Chief’s wife!”). He rides a motorcycle, wears a bomber jacket, loves jazz and plays saxophone (though badly), and sports facial hair in the manner of his idol, Frank Zappa; the officers at the tiny police station are flabbergasted by his announcement that he’s their new chief.  But he wins them over immediately, introducing himself as “Luca”, and roaring off on his motorcycle to solve a murder case within the first few minutes of his arrival.

Though a bit goofy and clueless, Luca is irresistible to women; so his Achilles heel, not surprisingly, is women. They can’t keep away from him, and he doesn’t try very hard to keep away from them. If a baby (girl) is crying, all he has to do is pick her up and she’s smiling again. Old ladies tell him he’s so handsome, and ask if he’s an angel! Though he has lots of flings, it’s all pretty innocent. He’s basically a nice, unattached guy who doesn’t mean any harm. He has some adventures with the glamorous, redheaded, and always available coroner, Ginevra (Jane Alexander), among several others, but things get complicated with the arrival of Luca’s new Inspector Lara Rubino (Roberta Giarrusso). The two were classmates in their student days at the Police Academy, and though the attraction between them is immediately obvious to everyone, she has a low opinion of him thanks to some objectionable behavior while they were students. She hints at it, he can’t remember what he could have done, and since they have to work together so closely, their rocky and romantic relationship is threaded through all twenty-four episodes.

The supporting cast is wonderful. Since he’s always hoping to be called back to the excitement of Milan, Luca has taken up temporary residence in a rural guesthouse. The widowed owner Ada (Daniela Morozzi) becomes a friend and confidant, while providing a much-needed dose of mothering along with wake up calls and late night card games. Although she has tremendous affection for Luca, she feels free to give him a piece of her mind when she thinks he deserves it: “You know, you suck with women, you really do!” (Even so, without condescension, Luca shows great respect for the deep intelligence and intuition of his female colleagues.) Lara also gets plenty of mothering and sage advice from her Aunt Caterina (Valeria Valeri), a warm, kind woman, who knows everyone in the community and often provides key information which aids in solving the current mystery. At the station, Sardi (Lucia Ocone) and Toscani (Augusto Fornari) are married officers. He’s usually frantic because she wants to get pregnant and harasses him for pro-creational sex. Officers Quattroni, Barbagallo, and Buttafuoco keep us laughing. And Manara tries as much as possible to avoid annoying phone calls from his adoring mother and two older sisters in Sicily. Before hanging up, he sometimes adds sotto voce, “and don’t call me Bubù!”

Unlike most crime series, there is not a great deal of violence. Usually the murder victim is discovered in the first scene of each episode perhaps by a servant or family member; the victim has been hit on the head, or poisoned, or stabbed but in most of the episodes nothing too graphic or gory has happened. The rest of the show is about solving the mystery and about the relationships between the characters. It seems unusual, also, that the murderers are seldom hard-boiled killers. Frequently, they are victims of extenuating circumstances, and we see that Luca regards them with compassion. Surprisingly, he has very little ego. In one episode, when the solution to a crime finally strikes him, he says, “Montalbano would have caught that immediately!” Though he characteristically instructs his staff to “Look alive!” (“Occhio vivo!”), he’s mostly a laid back boss. He relies on his intuition, on the skill of his coworkers, and on his frequently unorthodox methods and unauthorized investigations which cause him continual trouble with his ridiculous and emotional superior, Superintendent Casadio. Luca is physically fearless, takes tremendous risks, often fails to have backup, and in a way seems to be an alter ego for actor Guido Caprino, who is extremely athletic and performs many of his own stunts. Series scriptwriter Daniele Falleri claims that “Manara is a hero in spite of himself!”

 The word “beautiful” may appropriately be applied to the film locations of this series. The Museo Civico in the town of Trevignano Romano on Lago Bracciano near Rome does duty as the police station for the series. Otherwise, most of the locations are in the Maremma, a coastal region of Southern Tuscany which features Il Parco Regionale della Maremma, much like our own Cape Cod National Seashore. Unlike the Montalbano series’ imaginary town of Vigata, the fictional home of Inspector Manara, though also a patchwork of several real towns, is never named. But we can vicariously enjoy the beauty of Grosetto, Orbetello, and stunning Monte Argentario in the twelve episodes of Season One, and another twelve episodes of Series Two. 

Full disclosure: I have binge-watched this series (twice). You can order both series through clamsnet.org with your CLAMS library card.

https://youtu.be/YyUgA-DdNtQ

Part 11:
Four Documentaries

Spettacolo 
Available on Kanopy, Hoopla, and CLAMS

(2017) The beautiful medieval hill town of Monticchiello in Tuscany and its Teatro Povero (Poor Theater) is the subject of the wondrous documentary, Spettacolo (translation: “Show”). In the 1960s, the residents of Monticchiello began practicing what they called “autodramma,” culminating in an annual performance in the main piazza at the height of the summer season. Though the film was made by two Americans, Jeff Malmberg and Chris Shellen, they remain invisible throughout the production; the feel of the documentary is entirely Italian. 

The story centers on the townspeople of Monticchiello, and the man, Andrea Cresti, who through an organic process has led and directed them and their annual play for fifty years. Their defining moment as a people came toward the end of World War II, when the entire village was within a hair’s breadth of being summarily executed, and this story is one of the earliest they tell as a play, and the one which has compelled them to continue to tell the real stories of their lives. The villagers meet and engage in lively, in-depth debates during the fall and winter of the year, as they focus intently on the critical task of choosing and revealing what is closest to them. What’s most important to them is that the subject will honestly reflect what is impacting their lives at that moment in time. They have already been through several years of recession, though the rich seem to get richer, buying up farmhouses and homes in the town and surrounding areas for vacation homes, and further destabilizing the incomes of the residents. So the villagers play out the resulting emotions through their roles in the year’s production of the Teatro Povero. It’s a deeply interesting, human story, and will be especially so for aficionados of theater.

https://youtu.be/l7oITFo7rHg

Barolo Boys: The Story of a Revolution
On Kanopy and Hoopla

(2014) A lighter tone here, as we hear the story of the Barolo Boys (one, Chiara Boschis, was actually a “girl”) as they upended centuries of tradition during the 1980s in an effort to strengthen and modernize the making of the great wine, Barolo, in the Langhe region of the Piedmonte in Northern Italy. Introduced by chef Joe Bastianich, (hearty son of the fabulous chef Lidia Bastianich of television’s “Lidia’s Kitchen”) the film builds on interviews with the now aging winemakers (primarily in Italian with English subtitles) as they describe the radical techniques they used, which included selecting, cutting, and leaving almost half of the grape harvest on the ground in order to intensify the flavors of the remaining grapes. This waste was deplored by the traditional winemakers of the region, but it certainly made a name for the Barolo Boys, who caused a huge boom in the popularity and name recognition of Barolo. They even toured America promoting their versions of Barolo, and even for a while had their own soccer team! 

Even so, there is still controversy regarding whether what they did was better or worse for Barolo. Nevertheless, they were extremely influential. The vineyards, fields, and towns in the Langhe provide a great background to this story, and final scenes on the dizzying slopes of coastal vineyards in the Cinque Terre region are quite beautiful. Laughing, singing Italians, great wine, friendly conflict, camaraderie, marching bands straggling through vineyards…there’s a lot of fun and a lot to like about this documentary.

http://www.baroloboysthemovie.com/index_eng.html

Fisherman’s Conversations (2014) Hoopla

This beautiful 2014 film was made by young Italian filmmaker Chiara Bove Makiedo, in memory of her Croatian grandfather, a fisherman (by choice) of Hvar, the island where she summered for a good part of her life. Her grandfather had a career as a judge, and even as an ambassador to the UN, but chose fishing as his final career. 

Hvar is a Croatian Island in the Adriatic Sea, sharing a maritime border not far from Italy, and the Italian language is one of those spoken in Croatia. The filmmaker captures the startling contrasts between the lives of fishing families, and the “modern party tourism” which promotes the decadent “Carpe Diem” parties and threatens to overwhelm the island’s traditional lifestyle. As clubbers stumble back to their rooms at 4:30 am, drunk and high through broken bottles and other signs of the night’s partying, the fishermen pass them in the streets heading for their boats and the morning’s fishing. Three generations of the Bibic family use only their hands and the simplest cast nets, fishing from a family boat built in 1902, a style known as “tramata.” Their summer catch remains on the island, supplying the many restaurants as well as year round residents of Hvar. They fish in the way men have been fishing for thousands of years off these islands, their nakedness as they dive to set their nets so innocent-seeming when contrasted with the decadence of the “Carpe Diem” parties. 

During the winter, the local “dragger” fishermen sell ninety percent of their catch to the Italians. But all of the fishermen, and family members, no matter what style of fishing they favor, hang out together in the winter. They celebrate life’s events and struggle to conserve their way of life as best they can while tourism and nightlife are elbowing out their traditional values and ways of being. For some who watch Fishermen’s Conversations, the documentary will resonate with the feeling of Provincetown and other fishing communities we know of which are wrestling with the question of how to survive.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/100425333?dnt=1&app_id=122963

Fuocoammare (“Fire at Sea”)
Available with your CLAMS card

(2017) This extraordinary award-winning documentary by veteran filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi concerns the European refugee crisis and the residents of the island of Lampedusa, temporary landfall for the migrants from Africa and the Middle East on a treacherous and often fatal voyage. Though Lampedusa was at one time mainly a quiet island of Sicilian fishing families, its location, closer to the African coast than to Sicily, makes it a destination for the smugglers who carry desperate men, women, and children, under the most horrifying conditions, to a safer shore. 

Rosi turns his lens on a handful of residents of Lampedusa, and their ordinary day to day lives, which nevertheless at times intersect with the plight of the refugees. A seemingly carefree twelve-year-old boy, Samuele Pucillo, who roams the desolate island with a friend and a slingshot hoping to bag small birds, suffers from a new-found anxiety, and learns compassion. He is treated by his family doctor Pietro Bartoli, the only doctor on the island, who also must examine each and every refugee who makes landfall and even the bodies of those who die en route or are washed ashore from sunken vessels or life rafts. It is a daunting and horrifying task, and this compassionate man, though seemingly calm, is haunted by what he has seen. He deeply believes, “It is the duty of every human being to help these people.”

The film takes the viewer through the process the migrants endure from the moment when the boats make contact with the Coast Guard station on Lampedusa. This includes an unsuccessful search and rescue as well as a successful one. Even the successful ones, though, come at a great cost to the refugees. Although this is not an easy film to watch for many of us, I have added it to this blog post because I believe everyone should see it. And in spite of this great human tragedy, the courage and determination of the refugees as well as the compassion of Dr. Pietro Bartoli and others on Lampedusa make this movie ultimately life-affirming in a huge way. The prime minister of Italy considered this documentary, winner of multiple awards, of such importance that he distributed copies to the twenty-seven heads of state of the European Union.

https://youtu.be/JaYhHFiOaag

Part 13:
Zeffirelli’s La Traviata

Nanni Moretti is the director of many award winning films, including The Son’s Room for which he garnered the most prestigious award, the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001. Poet Mark Doty has said, “If art’s acceptable evidence, mustn’t what lies behind the world be at least as beautiful as the human voice?” If you are unconvinced by that question, Franco Zeffirelli’s magnificent production of the great Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata may be your path into it. For lovers of Italian opera, you will most likely have seen this movie more than once; if you are unsure of whether or not it’s for you, I can only encourage you to open yourself to a new experience. Since you are already a lover of things Italian if you are reading this post, just imagine “La Bella Lingua” flowing from the lips of Superhuman Beings in a film of extravagant beauty and staggering opulence. 

When this movie was released in the early spring of 1983, Provincetown had three thriving movie theaters, as well as free movies (with popcorn!) all winter at the Pilgrim House, the Crown & Anchor, and the Whaler Lounge at the old Holiday Inn. It was a film feast! One projectionist worked the three commercial theaters, and was kept very busy. If you were a friend, and not too shy to ask, it was possible to get a lobby poster at the end of the film’s run. I treasured my poster of La Traviata for years, until I gave it away to a friend who was equally enamored of it.

Vincent Canby, renowned film and theater critic of the New York Times for more than three decades, called the production “a triumph….La Traviata benefits from Mr. Zeffirelli’s talents as a designer as much as from his gifts as a director. The physical production is lush without being fussy. Nor is it ever overwhelming. This possibly is because at key moments we are always aware of details that, however realistic, remind us that what we are witnessing is not life but a grand theatrical experience. It’s not to be missed.”

The original source for the story of La Traviata is the novel La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camellias) by Alexandre Dumas “the younger,” published in 1848. When he adapted his story for the stage, it was wildly popular, and attracted the attention of the great Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi, who from it created the enduring masterpiece we know as La Traviata (The Fallen Woman). It was first performed in 1853 at La Fenice Opera House in Venice, and is still one of the most frequently performed of all operas.