Displaying items by tag: Marco Tullio Giordano

LA VITA ACCANTO/ THE LIFE APART

Italy, 2024, 100 minutes, Colour.

Valentina Belle, Sonia Bergamasco, Paolo Pierobon, Sara Ciocca, Beatrice Barison.

Directed by Marco Tullio Giordano.

A rather sombre Italian drama that focuses on depression but does hold out some hope.

The setting is the city of Vincenza in Italy’s north, attractively photographed throughout the film. But, much of the action takes place in a mansion, the home of a doctor, celebrated in the city, and his wife who suffers from depression. Also in the house is the doctor’s twin sister, an accomplished concert pianist.

While the film does focus on the mother, most of the action concerns her daughter, a very difficult birth, and a large birthmark on one cheek which singles her out, her mother blaming herself, furthering the depression, unable to care for her daughter properly even though she loves her. There is a nanny in the house to take care of the daughter. However, it is the aunt, the pianist, who takes a great interest in the young girl.

We see the girl, Rebecca, at crucial stages of her life. She is sheltered at home but wants to go to school, her hair sometimes covering her birthmark, but actually relishing school, and making friend with another young girl who comes from an entirely different background, poor, absent father, struggling mother. Rebecca realises that she can have a life outside the mansion.

Then Rebecca discovers that she has a talent for the piano, fostered by her aunt who, along with the nurse, act as surrogate mothers for the young girl.

Rebecca is able to cope as she grows older, interactions with the students at school, the staff, her skills at the piano, the constant care of her aunt, overcoming the pathos of her mother’s suffering and death, sometimes imagining her.

Ultimately, Rebecca is on the road to success, encountering her friend from school days again, liberating, and, an unexpected transformation.

A film for a serious-minded audience.

1. The significance of the title for Maria, for Rebecca?
2. The setting, the 1980s and 1990s, the city of Vincenza, historical, beauty, modern?
3. The importance of the score, music, Erminia and her concerts, performances, Rebecca, discovering her skills, performance? Maria and music and its effect on her?
4. Italian drama, operatic?
5. The focus on Maria, her age, relationship with her husband, her background, the Palazzo, pregnancy, the difficult birth, Rebecca and the severe birthmark? Maria’s reaction, unable to be mother to the daughter, love, yet alienation, erratic behaviour, with her husband, with Erminia, years passing, increasing depression, contemplating suicide, eventually killing herself? Her sometimes reappearing in Rebecca’s imagination?
6. Osvaldo, older than Maria, doctor, work in the city, reputation, society? Erminia as his twin sister, unmarried, musical talent, practice, performance, travels? Her bond with Rebecca, surrogate mother, encouraging her music?
7. Rebecca, seen at various stages of her life, the difficult birth, the significant birthmark, her mother keeping her apart, her being looked after by Laura as nanny, her response to Erminia, to her father? A little girl at home, the prospect of going to school, the various opinions, her mother’s not wanting it, Rebecca wanting it?
8. The experiences school, the birthmark, covering it, the reaction of the students, the staff, Rebecca coping? The friendship with Lucilla, Lucilla and a family background, the absent father, the desperate mother? And the bond continuing? Lucilla coming to Rebecca’s home, welcomed?
9. Rebecca growing older, the continued friendship with Lucilla, then her disappearance?
10. Rebecca as adult, the actress portraying her as an accomplished pianist? The impact of the music? Relationship with her father? The continued influence of her aunt? Social, the acceptance of her birthmark? The encounter with Lucilla, the bonding again with her, Lucilla and her music, contemporary, breaking out of the boundaries of the gilded life in the Palazzo?
11. The magic realism sequence with the disappearance of the birthmark? The intention behind this sequence, the reason for the transformation, the consequences?