Film festivals can be hit and miss, but I enjoyed the picks for this year’s Italian Film Festival, two period dramas that couldn’t be more different in style and mood.
Naples to New York has a surprising origin story: apparently it’s based on an early script treatment by Federico Fellini. The final version from Gabriele Salvatores is most likely a very different beast, but what this good-natured film lacks in sophistication it makes up with its sheer exuberance and plucky charm of its young leads.
It’s 1949 and we’re in Naples, where a rogue bomb from World War II leaves 10-year-old Celestina an orphan wandering the streets. She teams up with her friend Carmine, an older streetwise boy, and the two end up as stowaways on an American ship heading for New York, where Celestina hopes to reunite with her older sister Agnese. But when the kids finally arrive in the big, chaotic city, they realise that Agnese’s American life hasn’t quite worked out the way they imagined.
It soon became obvious that, despite its heavy themes, Naples to New York has very little interest in realism. Its hyper real tone reminded me of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the most excellent TV series I binged through recently, with the same kind of heightened, stylised aesthetic; in this Manhattan, every wall is plastered with kitschy posters advertising the American Way. The writing however is not on the same level. Treating things like class and ethnic prejudice with extremely broad strokes is not necessarily a problem in what is basically a fable. However I did feel the wheels come off during the woefully undercooked subplot involving Agnese’s legal troubles, which briefly turns the movie into a courtroom drama full of heavy-handed messaging.
That said, the feisty and lovable performances from the youngsters and their infectious chemistry do help the movie through its rocky patches, and Pierfrancesco Favino is a standout as gruff but kindly ship official. For all of its predictable beats, the movie’s ending genuinely caught me by surprise.
If Naples to New York is a comforting fairy tale, The Mountain Bride is all about raw and gritty authenticity. Based on the real family history of writer-director Maura Delpero, this austere and atmospheric drama takes place in Vermiglio, a small mountain village, near the end of Second World War. Though the title suggests a romantic story, the focus here is more so on the large household headed by Cesare, a stern and strict local teacher. The family is sheltering a Sicilian deserter named Pietro, in gratitude for him rescuing Cesare’s nephew from the war, and soon a shy and tentative romance develops between Pietro and Lucia, Cesare’s beautiful eldest daughter.
I’ve always appreciated movies that make you feel immersed into the real, everyday lives of the past, and have a powerful sense of very specific place and time. Delpero slowly builds an intimate portrait of the family and their daily rituals, in many respects a rigid and harsh world full of spoken and unspoken rules, but also not without tenderness and ultimately resilience. The intriguing, complicated figure of Cesare probably embodies these contradictions the best.
My own cultural background is very different, but something about the toughness of the war generation as shown here struck a deep chord. Though the deliberate pace needed getting used to, the movie draws you into the characters and their relationships, especially the endearing dynamic between the three very different sisters and their relationships with their father. Strangely enough, the romance between Lucia and Pietro is one of the least interesting things in the movie, though it’s central to the story.
The Mountain Bride was worth watching on the big screen, as its alpine setting is absolutely stunning, especially during winter when the stark snowy landscape is both gorgeous and unforgiving. Even the interior scenes have a beautiful, painterly feel to them, and the actress playing Lucia could have stepped out of an Old Masters painting.
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