Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
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Also this issue: Danger After Dark Déjà Vu Screen Picks |
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July 3- 9, 2003
movies
Fresh Breath
 Italian nice: Filippo Pucillo, Veronica DâAgostino, Valeria Golino and Elio Germano in Respiro. |
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The stunning-looking Respiro is a breeze.
In and out. Emanuele Crialese’s Respiro, as its title suggests, is about breathing, in a spiritual, vivacious sense. Inspired by an Italian folktale, Crialese’s film is at once vibrant and delicate, a study of a family unraveling and a fearfully traditional culture. Winner of the 2002 Cannes Critics Week award, Respiro is stunningly filmed by cinematographer Fabio Zamarion, partly evoking the handheld look of neorealism, partly carving out its own, crisply colored and painstakingly composed aesthetic.
Rendered through the experience of young Pasquale (Francesco Casisa), the film's evident focus -- an all-too-familiar tale of the tantalizing madwoman -- is both diffused and complicated. The family is nominally headed by Pietro (Vincenzo Amato), a fisherman in tune with the traditions of the Mediterranean island Lampedusa. He goes out in the morning and returns at night, darkened and weary from his hours in the sun. His gorgeous young wife, Grazia (Valeria Golino), works at the fish-packing plant and looks after their three children: Pasquale, the younger Filippo (Filippo Pucillo) and Marinella (Veronica D'Agostino), now old enough to be eyeing a cute traffic officer.
For all the routine of their lives, tensions are escalating. Bored, Grazia seeks mini-adventures with her kids, riding the family motorbike, her arms twisted around Pasquale's waist, her cheek resting on his shoulder, as if she's his sweetheart instead of his mama. She takes both sons to the beach, where she alarms and thrills them when she undresses to swim. Their respite is cut short when Pietro returns from the sea and spots his wife, floating and topless. As Pietro sputters on his boat, it's up to Pasquale to restore his mother to "modesty."
This scene introduces Grazia's history of grating against local customs and causing her husband embarrassment. As free and exhilarating as she seems to Pasquale, she also brings confusion and chaos (in one scene, she suffers a kind of fit, frothing and fainting as Pietro endeavors to soothe her, the kids looking on in horror). Predictably, the neighbor women are especially judgmental, suggesting that Grazia be sent away, to Milano (the unfathomable big city where doctors will put an end to her unruliness). In response, Grazia is by turns fretful, frightening and fierce.
Her excess is simultaneously distressing and inspirational, personal and broadly symbolic. When she discovers that Pietro has dragged her favorite dog off to a local holding pen for wild dogs, she musters her nerve and makes a fateful decision to free the animals. As the dogs tear through the streets, excited to be loose, the townsmen shoot at them from rooftops, picking them off one by one. This very visceral calamity impels Grazia's more numinous fate. By its end, Respiro offers hope in the form of irresolution, a lesson learned by the son at the expense of the father. Perhaps the next generation can be different, and more importantly, allow for difference. Breathe out.
recommended
Respiro
Written and directed by Emanuele Crialese A Sony Classics release Opens Friday at Ritz Five.
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