Le pupille

Le Pupille is a short film by Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (Lazzaro felice). A Christmas tale with a strong connection between reality and imagination, which follows the usual atmospheres of the Bolognese director and this time combines Dickensian with an ineffably Italian magical realism.

The script, as wittily told by the orphanage girls themselves, is a free adaptation of the Christmas letter, which the renowned writer Elsa Morante sent to her friend and literary critic, Goffredo Fofi. The short film builds the story around the anecdote told in the letter, respecting in part, the writer's own words, which in the form of a song, is interpreted by the pupils of the boarding school. Le pupille, a title that in Latin means precisely girls and where the director gives it that imaginative double meaning, with those eyes of the girls, moving freely in any direction, a detail shot that becomes the central message of the short film.

With Le pupille, Rohrwacher gives free rein to all his poetic notes, already present in his feature films, and signs a unique short film that seems to come from another era, with that 16 and 35 mm photography of marked grain, the work of his usual collaborator Hélène Louvart, visually reminiscent at times of Jack Cardiff's Black Narcissus for Powell & Pressburger. She also allows herself to pay tribute to slapstick comedy without complexes, with those accelerations in editing, underlining the fleeting moments of joy. But above all it pays homage to the Italian cinema, references such as the Tavianni brothers, the Vitoriode Sica-Cessare Zabatinni duo, or Pier Paolo Pasolini, maintaining the difficult balance of reality and fantasy, in the genre of Italian neo-magical realism.

Le pupille is a humane and moving story about rebellion, morality and purity at an early age and how our actions have unintended consequences, in the face of the emptiness of some traditions.

*A more detailed review can be found on the youtube channel Kristonkino.

This Christmas, I watched the 37-minute film Le pupille (The Pupil) on Disney+. It's one of the 15 films shortlisted for the Academy Awards early next year in the Live Action Short Film category. Set during wartime Italy, the film features little orphan girls living in a boarding school run by nuns, as they go about their routines on Christmas Eve leading to Christmas Day. There's a little bit of a musical number. But instead of singing "It's A Hard-Knock Life", the orphans act as a Greek chorus, opening and later closing the film, singing the summary of the plot as well as the denouement. The film contains themes of youth defiance against cruelty, injustice and totalitarianism encapsulated in a funny, bittersweet but not too saccharin-sweet story that is as heartwarming as it is profound.

At the center is the wide-eyed little girl Serafina (played by Melissa Falasconi, who received an Honorable Mention as Best Actor from the Philadelphia Film Festival), who brazenly stands up against the dictatorial Mother Superior, Fioralba (played by Alba Rohrwacher, the director's sister). The trigger for the main conflict is a humongous red cake which is given by someone for the orphans but the Mother Superior has other ideas for it.

The film's rebellion theme reminds us of Roald Dahl's Matilda and a past Oscar-winning short film titled Mindenki (Sing). But writer-director Alice Rohrwacher - a past winner at Cannes with 4 features films in her IMDb filmography - infuses Le pupille with so much tongue-in-cheek humor that keeps it from being too tense but still delivers the point precisely. Co-produced by, among others, the legendary Alfonso Cuarón, Le pupille is a wonderful, brilliant, entertaining and fulfilling short film. I look forward to seeing it listed in the Oscar nominations, to be announced on 24 January 2023.

There is no moral to this Italian Christmas short about orphans asked to make a sacrifice for Jesus. It's got goofy moments galore, some fascinating power dynamics, and some thoughts about morality, but mainly it's just a shaggy dog tale that wanders in an aimless but amusing fashion.

There is no way in the world you would ever see something like this from an American - the director is the person who brought My Brilliant Friend to TV, and she is unbound by the expectations of American TV.

I did, by the way, look up this sort of cake and I don't think it's portrayed accurately - all the recipes are of little single-serving-cup cakes!

Recommended.

Noel Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "This captivating and surprisingly suspenseful film shares with Rohrwacher's other work a wry sense of humor and a deep understanding of how people can be horribly evil, sometimes in the name of truth."

I'm leaving him a bit here because the tone created in the movie is definitely not original.

Firstly; Alfonso Cuaron is in the producer's chair of the movie, and the movie is almost a copy of A Little Princess, a re-make of Cuaron's 1995 movie.

Come on, I understand that those who haven't seen that movie can't see this obvious resemblance, but I don't understand how the big academy has let this happen.

I loved this film. The children are all brilliant the the layered story about what giving and self sacrifice really mean is wonderful, and the look and direction are all expertly executed. Subtle yet strong gentle yet brutal this is a film that warmed my heart even thought I didn't see it at Christmas. And to get that many children having such great reactions is indicative of a very good director indeed. Although I should imaging that the schedule was long for a short. The costrules the feel and th me cinematography were all wonderful a true treat and Xmas confection for everyone. Bit of a pole in the catholic sides too!