I feel like I got to know director Marco Bellocchio on a more intimate level last night – I watched his 2002 My Mother’s Smile (Il Sorriso di Mia Madre). I’ve been a fan; I loved “Vincere”, “Buongiorno Notte”, and “Il Regista di Matrimoni”, but I haven’t fully appreciated him until now.
My Mother’s Smile stars Sergio Castellito (Non ti Muovere) and Bellocchio has used him before (Il Regista di Matrimoni) as his conflicted protagonist; in My Mother’s Smile he is only temporarily conflicted. And if I had only seen this Bellocchio movie and not the others I may have not been able to put it into the proper perspective. It’s not really about the Catholic Church sucking (as the Church, I guess, thought – they denounced it). I’m Catholic and I know full well that the Catholic Church is far from perfect, but I admit to growing weary from attempts to portray it as an evil empire with no redeeming qualities.
Here’s Ernesto’s (Castellito) problem – actually, he’s got a lot of them, but his most recent is that the Catholic Church is looking to, much to his surprise, canonize his dead mother. His family, including his estranged wife, is into it – they think it will be really good for them in terms of money and stature. But they’ve let three years go by and haven’t clued in Ernesto because they think he’ll blow the deal; he’s an atheist and he hated his mother.
It’s a really complex story and you might not like the way the Church comes off in it, but I didn’t feel that they were the villains – they were just doing their thing. They were investigating the mom and trying to conclude if she actually did die a martyr, at Ernesto’s brother’s hand, begging him to spare her and forgiving him at the same time. It didn’t seem like there was anything in it for them to have a fake saint. They were looking for the truth as they know it.
Ernesto’s family, however, had no problem manipulating the truth to their advantage, and this brought up a whole bunch of childhood issues for Ernesto.
My Mother’s Smile is almost a modern day Fellini movie – it you’ve been missing those old psychological classics with the dreamlike quality, this one’s for you. I felt on edge watching it and wasn’t sure why. There was an element of danger from something I couldn’t identify – everybody in the movie, including Ernesto’s little boy, seemed menacing and a little evil.
I have a new favorite of Bellocchio’s and it’s this one. I’ll be thinking about it all day long.
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Writer: Marco Bellocchio
Stars: Sergio Castellitto, Jacqueline Lustig and Chiara Conti
I Love Italian Everything 