Film d'amore e d'anarchia, ovvero 'stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza... Or, Emasculation as the female vocation.

Ain't that a title after my own heart!

Film d'amore e d'anarchia...ⁱ is fabulous especially for the eyework. The girls in the casino were obviously led into ocular perdition by the impossible Fiore ; but the scene where that brunette (Tripolinaⁱⁱ) encounters and seduces 'Mimi... The eyes, the eyes, that's the leitmotif, the penile axis organizing about and around itself the entire production. Closed, kissing, open, wide, darting, resting, the whole thing's in the eyes. It works, too -- for an hour or so this pokemon, preteen reduction of womanhood seems almost plausible.

The even quality of the dialogue is certainly worth a mention as well. Polished, thought through, credible in the artistic sense of credibility, what the characters say to each other works in that golden sense of never getting in the way of the narrative. There's even the occasional quotable bit, if I were to count the films ever made that enjoyed equal or better dialogue I'd likely run out of my own two hands, but probably not of the harem's.ⁱⁱⁱ

Finally, and in closing : the hatred, the pure and unadulterated hatred, disdainful to the point of seeming "loving" to the naive, of seeming "tolerant" or "comprehending" perhaps, yet cold, unyielding, burning, undeterred ; the hatred of anything Italian, of Rome, of women and womanhood, of "sense" and "reason" and "dialogue" and "communication" and, well... It takes a Flash Gordon fan of distant Swiss ancestry that's been expelled from dozens of Catholic highschools to truly bring to life such hatred as this woman bears. I understand why, and wherefore ; I don't even necessarily disagree, in the points she chooses to present indeed her conclusions, implicit, mute, unforgiving yet stand. I just don't happen to think her selection of points is all that relevant in any broad or serious sense ; but then again, it's a story not a textbook, what difference does it make.

I don't think it makes any difference ; but those aren't whores, nor for that matter women ; that's not anarchism, nor manhood, nor government (of the people, or for the people, or otherwise), nor, properly speaking, anything at all. Tutto e delusione e factica.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily an unauthentic attempt at art^iv ; I will however say that it's not authentic to anyone that ever mattered.

1. 1973, by Lina Wertmüller (and therefore) with Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato. [↩]
2. After, she says, the original Sheik (with Rudolph Valentino, as opposed to Dorky Dorkerino). [↩]
3. The only equivalent item in the English space, Terms of Endearment, doesn't really make this list. [↩]
4. Then again... what ever is ? [↩]