Uh-oh, my anti-intellectialism is showing.
Young director Alice Rohrwacher surprised everyone when her second feature-length film, Le Meraviglie (The Wonders) won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Even me.
Quiet, slow-moving, artistically filmed Le Meraviglie made a big impression at the world’s most important film festival. Thirty-two year old Alice Rohrwacher’s visually stunning film stars her sister, Alba, and leaves a lasting impression, one way or another.
Combining realism from a cast made up of children who’ve never acted before with fantasy, Monica Bellucci dressed up as a kind of Italian Glinda the Good Witch, Rohrwacher does more with sensory perception than most filmmakers working today. And whether it was because of my poor Italian (there were no subtitles available on the DVD, Italian or English) or Rohrwacher’s intentional minimalism, I felt a little lost in the dreamy story; maybe that was the point.
Gelsomina and her hippie farmer family toils and survives, just barely, on a run down farm somewhere in Toscana, keeping bees and making honey with the family run business. Wolfgang, her severe father, depends heavily on her and her sisters’ labor to keep the family afloat, and the responsibilities given them leaves little room for normal childhood activities. Her mom, and everybody else in the family except for the two youngest daughters seem to spend all their time just trying not to piss Wolfgang off. The two youngest don’t worry very much about pissing off anyone, giggling as they jump from one mud puddle to the next wearing nothing but their underpants.
When Monica Bellucci shows up as a TV star filming in the area with a contest and the chance to be on TV, Gelsomina sees her school friends trying out for it and wants to do the same, but knows her Dad won’t approve, so she enters in secret.
Meanwhile back at the hippie farm, Dad’s in trouble because his honey making enterprise isn’t up to government standards (shocking!), and he needs money. A foster child, a disturbed boy from Germany, is taken in to help pay the bills, and animals are sold. The contest, Bellucci, and television in general are foolish absurdities as far as Wolfgang is concerned, but he needs the money, so he goes along with it.
Le Meraviglie is a work of art that I know I’m supposed to love but can’t pretend I do. Tedious, the first adjective that sprung to mind; odd, was the next one. I didn’t care about any of the characters, except for poor Gelsomina; I wanted to grab her up and take her to the nearest Target and let her buy some normal teenage stuff.
The acting is exceptional, particularly from the young girls, the Tuscan countryside is gorgeous as always, and it’s a wonder I didn’t love Le Meraviglie. To be fair, my hippie-farmer prejudices are hardly a secret, but seriously, sleeping on the front lawn is weird, stop treating your kids like they’re in a sad episode of ‘Little House On The Prairie’, and everyone, please, put on some pants.
I Love Italian Everything 