Respiro (2002)

A sunny seaside location and the radiant beauty of Valeria Golino are enough to set the mood in Respiro, a fitfully effective Italian film. Hollywood never quite figured out what to do with Golino, but she blossoms in this story about a sensual wife who's either free-spirited or manic-depressive, depending on your perspective. Her fisherman husband (Vincenzo Amato) finally decides to have her sent away for professional help, which only provokes an even more impulsive act from her. Within this story is a pointed critique of male machismo--Italian style. Director Emanuele Crialese veers between the neo-realist tradition and a more Fellini-esque taste for symbolism, never quite settling on one or the other. But the whiff of classic-era Italian film is welcome, and the seasoned, sun-baked presence of La Golino makes this movie compelling even when its point seems obscure. --Robert Horton Amazon.com

Small is Beautiful

This is a fine evocation of small town tensions and family dynamics with, from my non-Scicilian perception, a resonant truth to it. The most positive reviewers have laid out the scenario, the location shots, and acting qualities with aplomb. So no need to recapitulate. I've only seen Golino a few times, but this is a role that could have been conceived with her in mind. The ramifications of her undiagnosed highs and lows drive the narrative. There is some consensual component undeveloped in her character, a missing chink that renders her, if not savant, then caopable of placing her own interests above any one else's. The teenage daughter is more'adult' than her mother, and the sons and husband are alternatively seduced by her charms, annoyed by her eccentric irresponsibility, and anxious about her vulnerablity. She's a portrait of the puer personality. The machismo and protectiveness of the male actors is pure Scicilian( from my experience in these parts)and poignantly, engagingly communicated. The youngest boy delivers a memorably haranguing speech when interceeding in a blooming affair between his older sister and a raw police recruit, freshly assigned to the island; pure Scicilian! Elsewhere a reviewer mentions the film's poetic symbolic structure. Unless the viewer enters into this dimension, much of the tale will remain opaque. And, in this poetic thrall, I heartily agree with comments about the brilliant underwater concluding shot. Reborn as a goddess the community can accept her in a way that no Milanese therapist could explain.Excellent movie! October 16, 2008

The insights of desperation, depressive mood or lack of love!

A small village of fishermen, who live in Lampedusa, a small Italian island, a young marriage; a woman who simply doesn't accept the boredoma and the reduced existential universe, where nothing happens. she needs to be listened, but the level of her demands are quite above the surroinding affective world who involves her. So she has not many options except the sea with its enormous significance of freedom, an existential metaphor where love is just a part of that crisis.

An unusual movie that possesses its own rhthym, slow but rewarding. The sensual beauty of Valeria Golino, the beauutiful island, baked by the sun lights, hovered by the dark cloud of social conventionalisms and lack of perspectives for a recent future in which tomorrow simply will be a simple varaint respect today.

A brilliant film that unavoidably, reminds us to Antonioni, the great master of silences, existential anguish and desperation. There are exquisite images throughout it.

July 10, 2007

Great!

This is a masterpiece...
Good performances, beauty and feelings!
The boy that plays in the film is unbelievable, to much sensitive!
I've liked! June 6, 2007

This film is a powerful concentration of life in a small area of Italy.

Although subtitled Grazia's island (Grazia is the lead role, magnificently realized by Valeria Golino), "Respiro" could have well been called "Scenes from rural Sicilian life", as the scenography, cinematography and tableaux-like imagery seem as important to the director as her thin narrative line. Respiro's locale is Lampedusa, a tiny island far off the west coast of Sicily. About the same latitude as Malta, this place is about as remote as it gets - Tunisia is closer than Palermo. It can be safe to say that Italian time here has pretty much stood still for decades; this is Italy of de Sica and Mascagni, not Fellini and Prada. The men go out to sea, the children play, women pack fish, old black-clad crones meddle and the languid summer air of total boredom hangs down from the cloudless sky.

Throughout this film you would probably ask yourself, "Is she really as crazy as the family and neighbors think she is or just free spirited?" It's a fairly typical story, the type that a few great (and many, many average) Italian filmmakers have been serving up for the last three generations - life in the sun drenched rural, ritualistic and tribal south and the saga of one village denizen who dares to break the moulds. How long since "Cinema Paradiso?"

What I like most about the movie, besides the appealing scenery, was the interrelations of the characters, the humor, petty gossips, the impromptu emotional outbursts, the displays of maternal and filial affection. The two boys are tremendous: the older Pasquale (Francesco Casisa) is the more mature of the two. The younger Filippo (Filippo Pucillo) has an unregulated diarrhea mouth filled with hilarious and inspired ravings, often without sense. His rant against the busybody women is a treasure, as is his little-brother-as-big-brother protectiveness of his sister from the policeman-friend. The boy embodies an epic Italianate inflammability far beyond his years. While viewing this I thought the son's affection was overtly and uncomfortably oedipal at times. They do spend a lot of time and energy comforting their mom plus defending her against verbal attacks in the village.

After seeing this film, I have realized that the rural lives by the sea in many countries are similar, the differences are in the languages, but the feelings are same. I enjoyed this film so much I might see it a couple of times.
June 17, 2006

Magnificient Italians in a magnificent film

This beautiful film impacted me at a very physical level. The beauty of the sun baked island of Lampedusa in the turquoise Mediterranean Sea is stunning and elicits images of antiquity. The actors are almost angelic in their beauty. The life of the family and villagers is primal and native, simple and sometimes harsh. There are multiple issues that could be discussed about this film. I will discuss three below:

First, the mother in this story, Grazia, is a functioning manic-depressive who is wild and delightful in her manic stages. Yet, she frightens the town's other residents and she is an embarrassment to her husband, mother-in-law, daughter, and two sons. The overt, primary story line revolves around this woman and the struggle her family endures trying to get her into psychiatric treatment in Milan and then dealing with her mysterious disappearance.

Second, the story explores machismo and male dominance in native village cultures. The father Pietro is often compelled to act in socially prescribed ways, such as demanding complete obedience from his children, beating the children when they misbehave, not allowing his wife to converse with his brothers and buddies, and reacting strongly when his wife puts lipstick on local boys and when oldest son paints his mother's toe nails.

Third, under the primary story of a families reaction to a manic-depressive mother and to the social context of Italy, there is a deeper underlying story of an Oedipal struggle between a father and his eldest son for the love of the mother and the struggle to be her protector. Pietro and Grazia appear to be only around 18 years older than their daughter Marinella and maybe 20 years older than their son Pasquale (who seems to be around 15). The 35 year old Pietro is at the height of lusty manly power and loves his wife completely. Yet when he is pushed by family and neighbors to hospitalize her, it is her eldest son, Pasquale who comes to her rescue. Pasquale is fast leaving the world of boyhood behind and entering the mysterious world of adult sexuality. He struggles with the father, rarely overtly, usually covertly, to save the mother from hospitalization.

It is the resolution of this conflict that begins to dominate the second half of the film and which is the climax of the film. The beauty of the actors and scenery, the basic primal reactions to the struggle for village existence, and the life affirming and basic humanity of this film all come together into a magnificient production. January 7, 2006

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