SEVEN BEAUTIES - 1975
Directed by Lina Wertmuller, Starring Giancarlo Giannini.
I have prescribed myself some Italian cinema lately, and this film is worth a write up. I rented it because Wertmuller was one of but TWO female directors prominent in Italian cinema at the time. After viewing Seven Beauties, I think you'll agree, it's true what they say: everything has been done before, possibly better, in the films of the 1970s. Ugh to be a filmmaker then, Lina, you lucky bastard!
I have this very forgiving love for watching movies without any warning to their subject matter. Sometimes this leads to watching Conversations with Other Women, sometimes it leads to remarkable gems. But oddly enough, I often fall into this Holocaust trap. With books as well, I will have no idea I'm in for concentration camps and torture, but there I am! Right at the heart of a time history I feel very strongly about (ohh I am so deep can you stand it?). Seven Beauties was such an event.
The first five minutes of the movie are an amusing foundation. Right away you know you're in for ghastly subject matter and laughter that should make you ashamed, but never does. A Holocaust prisoner trying to win his freedom by seducing a fat fuck Nazi... what do you do with that situation? Do you laugh or weep? I ended up doing both. And there are many similar scenes throughout, all linking together to form this staggering portrait of war, a terrible man, and brutal sexuality, where you find humanity at every turn. Does that sound like a film review vomit burp? It's really how I felt: like there was a prevailing human element in these inhuman actions. Every time a Holocaust movie jumps me in a back alley, I'm left with this inevitably romanticized version of dying, be it of spirit or body. But Seven Beauties was life in death, like humanity in the utterly obscene. Which is funny. Which is mortifying. Which is why movies are made.
My advice: Fuck Life is Beautiful. It was done before, better.
