Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto

Travolti [da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto]ⁱ is, in a purely technical, shop-talk perspective by very far the best product of the Giannini-Melato coupling, so great indeed that it enshrines them as cinema's historical best, certainly above de Funes / Gensacⁱⁱ (let alone Burton / Taylorⁱⁱⁱ heights of ridiculous disfunction ammalgamated with shocking ineptitude). It is also probably Wertmüller's best film, though indeed wonders like Mimi or Paolo manage to include intensely more interesting backgrounds than the limpid skies and limpid seas of the central Mediterranean^iv (and half-completed sketches like Pasqualino's unsympathetic caricature of a guapo readily dominate their respective, very narrow fields). Yet, what's in a background ? Accuplation, of course. What else.

Speaking of which, and moving on therefore to the psycho-social, the status of the female, naturally subjected, is elegantly^v explored (and the artificial substance of society^vi casually mentioned). Why, indeed, shall she pay for all the injustices in the world ? She does, of course. She's built to, of course (and try as she might to avoid it, there's nothing to be gained in "succeeding"). But... why ? Why ?

Who knows these things.

1. 1974, by Lina Wertmüller, with Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato.

   Madonna had this jewel butchered thirty years later, resulting in the utterly appaling Swept Away (2002). The general impression is that the glorified hotel maids / waitresses of pantsuitistan tend to go Romanian upon genuine culture in a desperate if doomed bid to prop up their negligible, mean&meagre self-centered interests, as exemplified by regrettables like Taco-Taco Burrito Lopez ; but it's really not the ethnics that are the greatest offenders, because Ciccone tops the list. [↩]

2. Not to mention more distant contenders in the Alain Delon / Mireille D'Arc vein. [↩]
3. Truly only mentioned here to make the point that indeed, English-speaking cinema has no couples even remotely worth the mention, no doubt owing to the deeply immature, psycho-socially ridiculous gender arrangements prevailing among that misfortunate group for the entire modern period and still stifling it today. [↩]
4. Speaking of which, principal photography could've greatly benefited from the presence of an actually competent DOP ; as the print stands it's quite obvious the director had some vague inkling of the treasure she's setting tent upon, but little clue about how to mine it, resulting in something rather like classical tragedy. Ah, if only someone who knew the craft were there available, to open her eyes and right her hands in his particular field. [↩]
5. Chief item on the list composing said elegance, the correct representation of love, romantic, real, true love : that thing which the woman is commanded to experience, and experiences because she was commanded to -- if she's any good, and if the virile imperator's commanding intra vires, which is an impossible conundrum to resolve. (Yes, I'm aware you stand quite ready to "propose a resolution" ; thank you very much si-un praz verde). [↩]
6. My enchanted life in my harem, surreal as it is incredible, overpowering as it is imaginary, survenes on the interplay of exceptional, wonderous properties, attributes, characteristics. As I am powerful, so are they brave ; as I am sophisticated, so are they earnest -- and not a little bit, nor merely a whole lot, but outright absurdly and excessively and unjustifiably so. The table stakes for participation are inhuman for having gone so far past the super-human ; yet by grace of the strange phenomenon whereby there's more diversity from human to human than between all other beasts, because there's more space in the gaps between one and another than there's between euglena and mouse, arthropod and mammal, archaea and pithecanthropus, therefore such wonders as I have can be had (though I doubt repeated in a million years). Outside of such enchanted walls as these society's indeed the substance of artifice, substantially artificial, by consequence inmiscible with the natural essence, irreducible to anything like it but unmitigatably pervertive without the benefit of any kind of eventual harmony. Two large primes, producing together a joint period squarely outside of the purview of mere mortals.

   Not in a million years... [↩]