La desconocida

We have been waiting for Tornatore for years. But it was worthy, if this is the result! After Malena, he is returning to the highest levels of his carrier. Few movies, but most of them are unforgettable pearls! In this one, nothing is out of place and all the actors are playing at their best, with various original stories all perfectly interlacing: everything put together, this is one of the best movies ever directed by Tornatore!! Michele Placido is heavily representing the evil in this story, playing one of his most ambiguous, scaring and demonic characters of his long carrier. But everyone is completely believable in their roles and the suspense of the plot keeps you constantly concentrated until the end.

Finally an Italian film with an international taste! No married couples going through a difficult period, no stupid pointed remarks to our painful ruling class.

The universe in which "The Unknown" takes place is, first, the shadow world of those sordid, sinister and rude men, who aren't worthy to be called human beings, who bait young girls from the East-European countries with the false promise of a good work in Italy, as waitresses, housemaids, even models. The girls' families pays a lot of money out for their daughters' travel toward the affluence, but, when the girls come to Italy, they soon find out they will never be cover beauties or salaried people: they are forced to prostitute themselves until they reach, with their work, the amount their families paid. Practically, they become slaves, continuously exposed to rapes, strokes, blackmails.

Then, "The Unknown" moves into the comfortable world of a common North Italy town. An incredibly harsh but marvelous film. At the end, I wondered: how many stories like this happen around us and we just aren't conscious.

"The Unknown Woman" is such an intense film that don't even think about "having a good time" while going to see it. "Cinema Paradiso" shouldn't be your reference for this "dark" Tornatore film. This is not for having a good time! This is for witnessing the lives that you can hardly think someone lived. This is feeling the pain of injustice in your veins. This is feeling shame that you live in such a world and can't and won't be able to do anything to change it. This is heart breaking! This is being absorbed by a touching story that is beautifully told. This is what cinema is for. One can only say,"Bravo Tornatore"!

Irena (Kseniya Rappoport) is a mystery woman obsessed with getting the nanny job with a particular family. She bribes the building's manager to clean the common area. She befriends the family's nanny and then she even trips her down the stairs to her death. Valeria Adacher, her daughter Thea, and husband Donato have a secret safe in their apartment. Thea is pushed around at school and Irena uses unconventional measures to toughen her. In the continuing flashbacks, Irena is an Ukrainian prostitute who finds love with a young man. That past is never far from her mind and comes back to harass her.

This is a movie precious with its ultimate reveal. It does a great job creating some misdirections. It lasts a bit too long. The reveal should come sooner allowing a more compelling action thriller third act. It's a compelling mystery for the first hour. The sex slave montage does get repetitive and possibly reveals too much. This could be a more compelling thriller if it's tighter.

I need to clarify one thing before I begin this review. I am a man. I enjoy watching muscle cars hurdle through a race track, I could watch Die hard 2 any day of the week and I never had the urge to watch Desperate housewives/Sex and the city or anything else that might give me an insight to the opposite gender (assuming those shows do that). I am not writing this as an apology on behalf of my gender but because the female psyche is a realm that I have yet to fathom and this film not only exposes the abyss of the women's trade atrocities but also to the uncharted territory of one woman's quest for happiness.

That particular woman is Irena (Xenia Rappoport- her performance is beyond describable), Irena is an Italian speaking, Russian-descent woman in her 30's that starts to work as a maid in an affluent house of well to do parents and their little girl. At first, her "curiosity" for her employers' belongings (and since they are in the Diamond business, belongings they have in abundance) leaves the viewer to assume that Irena is a skilled thief that believes in the broader definition of the term "Cleaning". Clearly, the truth is much more complicated.

It is also clear that the past of Irena is riddled with humiliation, violence and degradation committed on her by, well, the lesser people of my specimen but most of all she is haunted not only by what she had to endure but by what she had and lost and more importantly, what she never got the chance to have. I am deliberately enigmatic because the film is too. The peeling of Irena's past is is gradual and seemingly sporadic and her past is gut wrenching and scarring.

While the viewers are getting clearer glimpses of that past, Irena, knowing that the skeletons in her closet are vivid and always present, forms a bond with her employers' daughter, a young and fragile kid that Irena seems determined, far too determined to a stranger's eye, to instill the street-toughness that Irena had to acquire in ways that are anything but pleasant.

The fictitious story of Irena (which is all too real to too many women) could have been a display of sensationalist voyeurism, a self righteous lecture of the trivial and obvious (and let's face it, I didn't need to see the film to find the notion of women trading despicable) or a mere excuse to show a morbid film under a politically correct subject.

This film doesn't have a shred of the above characteristics. The director enhances the horror atmosphere by the chilling musical score, the absolutely flawless acting and script and primarily, by exposing a woman's quest for happiness amidst the live that leaves very little chance of attaining it.

I am usually highly reluctant to discover major plot advancement in movies (even movies I don't recommend to watch) but this film excavates the problem because the deciphering the enigmatic story of Irena is so engrossing and the most valuable asset of the film that disclosing even the smallest of details might weaken the movie's effect. This movie is worth seeing with a companion so you can discuss its qualities and ponder of the true nature of the movie's end (and I used the word "Enigmatic" in this review far too many times already).

There are a couple of matters that I do prefer to clarify:

The movie is the reason why people make movies and why people like yours truly enjoy movies so much. Not only there aren't any noticeable flaws in the film, there are also no redundant scenes, tedious dialog lines that could be discarded or disturbing views that can be eliminated without heavily impairing the overall impression of the film.

The disturbing views are usually implied and the ones that are clear appear for a fraction of a second but leaves a far longer impression. Those of you who envision this film as a myriad of scenes of red wine and Lake Maggiore passing through the window of a fiat 500 are in for a major disappointment.

The rest, though, will experience the true effect of a flawless film that leaves an impression that exceeds the limitations of my penmanship.

10 out of 10 in My FilmOmeter