No doubt, we are in the presence of a magnificent director, I picked this movie after seeing "Romanzo criminale", also directed by Michele Placido and where he shows again his portentous talent for film directing. He moves the actors so smoothly and gets top performances from them as very few directors are able to do. From the very beginning the art direction is superb, the recreation of the period impeccable and so are the costumes and props.
We seem to be back in 1910. The acting is so good that it's impossible to imagine anybody doing it better. The main characters, tormented --both of them-- to the point of paranoia, reach insufferable mental torture and in her case, tremendous blows --battered woman anyone?-- being pushed, pulled, raped, from the front, from the back, from any possible angle that the human body permits the act. Crushed against the walls, thrown with violence against the floor --Ouch! mind that tiled floor, it's very hard!-- to the extent that one wonders why she doesn't finally looked like the "Bride of Frankestein".
In the 90s she could have gone to Brazil, to Doctor Pitanguy, for some plastic surgery to remove all the bruises gotten in those agitated physical encounters, but in the 1910s I suppose she could only get some ointments and resign herself to the condition of a battered woman (battered in this case is a very light understatement). It's extremely difficult to understand her love --passionate at that-- for this crazy man that will end his days in a madhouse for something like 20 years, and where he will eventually die. They say that "love is blind", well, this case would be the perfect example for that saying.
She was a successful writer in Italy at that time --the story is a true story-- a splendid looking woman (at least the actress, I never saw a picture of the real writer), talented, productive, organized, and she goes and falls for this bum! Yes, he was a genius of a poet and maybe the best poet at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century in Italy, but who cares!! that's all right for movies and stuff, but in real life who needs that kind of treatment!! Talking about treatments, the one she received for her arthritis seems to be so terrifying for our modern view of medicine that not even cows are treated that way nowadays.
The photography is very dark, full of shadows, matching the mental state of our couple, absolutely exquisite, so is the lighting and the color, that gives such a good old fashion feeling to every scene. Not to be missed is the scene where we are offered a total nude view of Stefano Accorsi with his back to the camera where we can appreciate why -- well, the physical part counts too-- she was so hot about his body. The music by Morricone, sensational. An engrossing film, if you don't mind the very seriousness of its theme.
