La Grande Bellezza

I’ve finally seen it, ‘La Grande Bellezza’; Paolo Sorrentino’s masterpiece has been released on DVD in Italy and arrived at my doorstep this morning.

Having premiered at Cannes back in May, I’ve read all the reviews and I have to say, I still got the wrong impression from what has been already said about it. Probably I’ve just misunderstood, because this film isn’t one to be so much dissected and debated as it is to be absorbed and then reflected. Right now, minutes after having turned off the DVD player, I feel almost as if I’ve been shown something important by God, or a ghost, or someone showing me great mysteries in a crystal ball and they’ve said to me, “There. Now you spend some time just thinking about that one”.

How’s that for a hyperbolic reaction to a film that seems to want to condemn hyperbole?

For Gep Gambardella, (Toni Servillo) a journalist who wrote an important book years ago and has spent the time since resting on the laurels, everything in life seems like an exaggeration; a vapid, narcissistic, waste of time. In the midst of his socialite life in Rome he is surrounded by self-absorbed pseudo-intellectuals and artists that sully the name of art with meaningless nonsense, and he’s hesitant to contribute to the blah, blah blah that he feels swirling around him. “Ci sono cose più importanti che provocare me”, Gep tells a young artist who has just run naked, smashing her head into an aqueduct as part of her performance. “There are more important things than provoking me.” He doesn’t get how shocking = brilliant and she doesn’t get why he doesn’t appreciate her brilliance.

But when she says, “I’m an artist. I don’t have to explain anything.” is that any less full of shit than when the 104 year old almost saint tells him, “I’m married to the poor. Poverty doesn’t tell; it lives”? Neither of them feel that they have to explain themselves, but it’s what they want in exchange for what they do that makes the diffence.

Though Rome gets blamed for all this insipidness, it shouldn’t be. Pretenders are everywhere, in every city, large and small, and they always have been. Even in my little American town of Hudson, Ohio the “blah, blah. blah” could drown out The Great Beauty, if we let it.

For those of you who argue that Toni Servillo is not one of the great actors of our time, you have to stop. He is perfect in the part, as he is in every part. Every gesture, every turn of phrase betrays his character’s search for something to live for. Carlo Verdone plays his friend Romano in a role that shows us the more serious actor that he might have been, had he not given us all of those successful comedies.

This movie should be a serious contender for the Academy Award for best foreign film. I really don’t know what they are looking for if it isn’t.