Las hermanas Macaluso

Emma Dante's adaptation of her own play is a touching tale of the lives of five Sicilian sisters. Told in a distinct three act structure, we first meet them when their ages range from young adults to a pre-teen. Their parents have passed on and they make ends meet by raising doves. They laugh, they play and they squabble. There is an innocence to their bonds. Years later, we catch up with them after a family tragedy. Their lives have been changed, and not all for the better. Two of the sisters still live together in the family home. The third act takes place in that same homestead now with the women old and gray.

A synopsis isn't what the movie is about. Each act essentially takes place in one single day - remarkably, it's enough to tell their life story. Dante's approach is to let the details tell their life stories. The house itself becomes a unifying character. The decorations and objects of their youth still haunt their present. It's a daring approach, and Dante makes it cinematic with atmosphere and poignancy. The final act is told without any meaningful dialogue at all. The acting is good, all the more challenging because there are up to three actresses per role.

It's ultimately a pretty sad bittersweet tale, but, Dante imbues it with life. What's really impressive is that the entire film is only 89 minutes long. Proof positive that a "short story" can be just as moving as an epic.

My mother had five sisters. Despite their age gap they grew up to have such deep bond among them that they used to say 'whoever among us is to die last, will be the unluckiest one.' As a kid I never really comprehend the meaning of it.

After the death of my first aunt, I saw my mother and other aunts mourn for months, years. Their eyes would fill with tears just thinking about our late aunt. As a teenager it was still beyond my comprehension.

During Covid two of my aunts died in two days. I was in the hospital and witnessed their departure. I was an young adult and to watch them go just like that, something changed inside me. I truly felt their loss and the loss of every relative that I'd lost prior. Every bit grief that I should've felt before engulfed me. I was drowned in sorrow. I felt what my mother and the other aunts felt. I experienced actual grief. They say grief is the heaviest emotion. I can firmly confirm that.

This movie showed grief almost exactly like that. I'm saying almost because grief is different for every person. What the sisters in the movie experienced is different from what my mother and aunts did but it was similar. This movie reminded me of that emotion that was outpouring through my tears in the lobby of the hospital. And I appreciate it.

I'm not aware of the inspiration behind this story but I guess it must be biographical: yet this is not overly important for the viewer, except for the intimate care we can feel the author put in the production. I loved it.

An apparently minor work which reminded me of 2 other recent films: "August: Osage County" (AOC) and "Roma" which in some sense represent extremes of family life portraits styles. On one side "AOC" scenes and dialogues are so unrealistically poignant that even people with an IQ of 200 would never talk like that (and that fast). I hardly doubt anything except some irrelevant details is historically accurate there: everything feels designed for some purpose. Which is not necessarily bad, just like authenticity isn't de jure good. "Roma" is instead authentically documentaristic in its depiction of events. Yet such elegant realism actually left me detached: I was pleased but I was rarely touched as if repelled by the same barriers we use to protect ourselves from the world. "Le sorelle Macaluso" lies elsewhere: it doesn't offer neither incisive dialogue nor objectivity. Is that a stylistic decision, just accidental or the magic of a masterpiece? I don't care as long as I care so hard for what I see.

On the negative notes: in "Le sorelle Macaluso" unfortunately the characters are somewhat painted with a brush heavier than it could/should have been (and I mostly blame the writers, not the actresses which are on average very good). Too many things aren't ligthtly touched on and left for the viewer intelligence to understand.

Photography is also weak - especially compared with the previously mentioned movies - while music - although unoriginal - features some great choices.

All in all 4-5 scenes alone deserve my praises and justify the view. In particular I found the last 5 mins scene extremely moving, delicate, tragic, poetic and universal: unforgettable. I'm not aware if it's an "original" or the author "lent" it somewhere else: anyway you shouldn't miss it.

I liked the feel of the first third of this film, but the opportunity to establish the characters of the five sisters was squandered.

Without knowing more about each sister, it was hard to care what did -- or did not -- happen to each of them. Each sister seemed to have a key trait -- applying lipstick, reading books, etc. -- but I really wanted and needed their characters to be fleshed out.

For me, the most interesting part was when the "sister who reads books", read a passage from a book that I felt sure was The Great Gatsby. (I didn't search to find the passage she read out, so I can't confirm my hunch.)

Adapted from her own stage play, Emma Dante's film 'The Malacuso Sisters' serves up a trio of vignettes of a Sicilian family at different stages of their lives. Key to the story, such as it is, is a tragedy that strikes them at the end of the first part. This beginning, in which the sisters are still children, is nicely assembled and deftly observed. But thereafter the film fails to develop (rather than just imply) a plot, and relies on heavy use of sentimental music to paper over the cracks. One feels there's a tale to be told about these people; but somehow this movie shies short of telling it.