In Rocco Papaleo’s second attempt at directing a feature film, Una Piccola Impresa Meridionale (a little southern enterprise) he stars as Don Constantino, a defrocked priest who returns to his hometown a broken man. He’d fallen in love with a woman who didn’t find him quite so alluring as an ex-priest, but the defrocking and the heartbreak weren’t the worst of his problems; telling his mother would be the hard part.
Already shamed by a daughter who ran away “to China” with a lover, leaving behind her loyal husband Arturo (Riccardo Scamarcio), Mamma Stella (Giuliana Lojodice) isn’t willing to suffer another humiliation in town and she banishes her son to the family lighthouse to lay low.
But Don Constantino isn’t cooking pasta for one for very long; the lighthouse on the beautiful Sardinian coast becomes a sort of “Island of Misfit Toys”, attracting every outcast in the area. Valbona, the lesbian cleaning girl who is camping out ont he beach drops off her sister Magnolia, a retired prostitute (Barbora Bobulova), Arturo, tired of being the town cuckold, and even his runaway wife, Rosa Maria all flock to the lighthouse, making it even more difficult for Don Constantino to hide things from his mother.
When the roof starts leaking they are joined by “una piccolo impresa meridionale” a little southern enterprise, two eccentric itinerate roofers and a little girl. the group makes a wacky and supposedly heartwarming “family” that supports and encourages each other.
I can see what Papaleo was getting at. But he didn’t get there.
Una Piccola Impresa Meridionale is so excruciatingly jammed with sentimentality, clichés, and unlikely scenarios and dialogue that I almost abandoned watching it a couple of times. What Papaleo apparently intended to be wacky fun was weighed down by mushy over-emotionalism. His disjointed storytelling is probably just the result of his inexperience as a writer and director and maybe he could get better in future films, but somehow I doubt it. Papaleo seems stuck in a style of old fashioned Italian comedies I’ve never been fond of.
Aren’t Italians getting tired of them? You tell me.
Director: Rocco Papaleo
Writers: Walter Lupo, Rocco Papaleo
Stars: Barbora Bobulova, Rocco Papaleo, Riccardo Scamarcio
I Love Italian Everything 