Mimì metallurgico ferito nell'onore

As a woman director in the early seventies, in a series of films Lina Wertmuller took on the issues related to gender and sexual revolutions, feminism and entrenched politics and economics. This work is one of them.

As is true of this part of her oeuvre, the film works on many levels. The director is never satisfied with merely going after the easy laughs. Any viewer looking for social commentary, both in the main story-telling and the subtext will come away satisfied.

This is a very "Italian" and "European" movie, in the sense that it captures the spirit of the times: both of the Italian North/South cultural wars/divide and of a particular European concern with the strength of "left" political and artistic movements and explorations of alternative, non-materialistic life-styles.

All of this is shown as experienced by Mimi, a southern Italian everyman, buffeted by fate. In this role, Giancarlo Giannini once again shows his mastery of the acting craft. As is true for all foreign films, my advice is that if you don't know the language of the original, always view the subtitled version, so as not to miss the subtleties of the individual performances.

I won't give away any of the plot. Just want to note that (as an architect, not a formally- trained film-maker) I can still appreciate the choices made by the director and cinematographer in telling the story. This is true for a thousand details. In the case of this film, the inspired choice of the camera lens ("fish-eye") for the scene between Giannini and Elena Fiore toward the end of the movie, adds immeasurably to its effectiveness. See for yourself and ROTFL.

Lina Wertmüller's Mimì metallurgico ferito nell'onore (The Seduction of Mimi) is a biting political satire wrapped in a tragicomedy about masculinity, honor, class struggle, and hypocrisy in 1970s Italy.

The story follows Mimì (Giancarlo Giannini), a Sicilian laborer whose refusal to vote for the Mafia-backed candidate costs him his job. Fleeing to Turin, he finds work and becomes involved in union politics - and in a passionate affair with a fiery leftist woman. But when personal betrayal and political disillusionment intertwine, Mimì's ideals unravel, exposing the contradictions of both the patriarchal system and his own moral compass.

Giannini gives a brilliant, charismatic performance as a man torn between traditional values and modern ideologies, love and ego, revolution and self-interest. Mariangela Melato also shines with her fearless and sharp presence. Wertmüller's direction is vibrant, satirical, and deeply human - she exposes the ridiculousness of macho pride and political opportunism with humor and sadness.

Lina Wertmuller packs a lot of exaggeration into her characters and stories. Her actors deliver it, too. This film would deserve watching just to admire Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, they are infectiously good. What I find detracts a bit from the film, and keeps it from being as good as Wertmuller's best films, is the mixture of social and personal commentary; it is all jumbled together in a very 1970s anarchic way. Wertmuller mocks all the institutions of authority through the clever use of the same actors in multiple roles, and she mocks Mimì (Giancarlo Giannini) for his self-serving and ever-changing attitudes towards women and marriage. Each of these stand beautifully alone and each could have made an entire film. But I don't get the point of her mixing the two.

Giancarlo Giannini plays a simple Southern Italian worker who unwisely thinks his local elections aren't 100% rigged by the local mob. Assuming it's a truly secret ballot, he disobeys the mobs instructions and votes for a local Communist instead. Well, he nearly gets himself killed in the meantime and is forced to run to Turin in the north. There, quite by accident, he runs afoul of the mob AGAIN and is nearly killed. In fact, this happens a lot in the film and the generally apolitical Giannini tries to play BOTH sides to his own benefit. In addition, he begins sleeping with several different women--once again hoping he can somehow balance it all and keep from getting killed. Despite all the many, many dangers, Giannini is somehow a survivor and the film has many cute little twists and turns.

I can tell that this satire was meant to be very funny, but I just didn't find myself laughing. While it is a good film, it's certainly not among the more memorable Italian films I have ever seen. It's slightly better than a time-passer, but that's really about all. I think the biggest reason for this isn't due to the humor but more to the fact that Giannini's character is a real selfish jerk. Had he been more sympathetic, I really think the film would have been more memorable. However, considering this film won many awards and was pretty well respected in its day, it is quite possible I am just an idiot. See it for yourself, but just be surprised if you, too, don't find the film all that interesting--or you think I am a lousy reviewer!

"The Seduction of Mimi" is an uninspired English translation of "Mimi metallurgico ferito nell'onore", the original title of the film whose approximate equivalent would be "Mimi the metallurgist wounded in his honor". The author is Lina Wertmüller, an Italian director whose films are always original and not just by their names. This 1972 film captures some of the main features of Italian society at the time - violence, organized crime, capitalist exploitation, the North-South economic gap, corruption, hypocrisy - in a way that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. It does it in a style that mixes the radical social comments of the directors of the previous generation like Pasolini with the best tradition of Italian comedies of morals and characters. Add to that the extraordinary charisma of Giancarlo Giannini (this role that had been refused by several actors among which Marcelo Mastroiani was their first collaboration) and the audacity of the screenwriter director that I can only imagine facing the chevaliers of political correctness in the film studios of today. The result is a foamy film, which does not show too many signs of erosion, although its age is close to half a century.

Carmelo Mandocheo called Mimi could be one of those heroes in Chaplin's movies that seems to never be abandoned by bad luck. The beginning of the film finds him a worker in a stone quarry in Sicily, married to a wife who is shy to the point of frigidity, and who gets in trouble after being discovered that he voted in the elections with the communists and not with the Mafia candidates. He has no choice but to join the wave of internal migrants from southern to northern Italy in those years. Arriving in Turin, he quickly finds that everyone who spins the wheels of the system seems to be part of the same mafia clan - from the industrialists who employ him to the trade unionists. The meeting with the beautiful Trotskyist (a word he can't pronounce) Fiorella triggers a love story that can't end too well, especially after the heads of the ubiquitous Mafia send him back to Sicily. We are in the midst of a full and frothy Italian family comedy, with the double meaning of the word 'family' in a Sicilian context.

Giancarlo Giannini makes a great role here. In a matter of seconds, he can switch from funny comedy to social drama, from passionate lover to self-persiflage. Mariangela Melato, an extremely talented and expressive actress, whom I don't remember seeing in other movies from that period, is his partner. The whole team of actors is very well chosen. The screenplay and directorial approach of Lina Wertmüller combines Italian farce and morality comedy with social media film, adding a dose of boldness and frankness that is present in the Italian cinema of the time but not necessarily in political movies. Where her peers spoke out angrily, Lina Wertmüller used the acid of satire. Her place among the significant Italian directors of the period is well deserved, and 'The Seduction of Mimi' is one of her films that does not disappoint its viewers today.