Swept Away

A trip into the Mediterranean sea becomes a trip into the discovery of how society's frameworks of the rich and poor are delicate and temporary.

In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, American film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, his highest rating. Ebert wrote that the film "resists the director's most determined attempts to make it a fable about the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and persists in being about a man and a woman. On that level, it's a great success." I'm on board with Ebert. I think this film was exceptional. Emotionally, it was raw, and I have to praise the performers and the director for the intensity. How you get a love story out of deep economic and political hatred, I don't know, but they pull it off. And despite the violence and abuse, there is something deeper here. Really a great film with something powerful to say.

Despite the shrewish bitching of Rafaella and the grumbling of the sailor help- this is a very thought-provoking movie. What especially helps is the cinematography- by Wertmuller's husband- the white sailor uniform, the black diaphanous garb of R. and the blue sea as backdrop. As the affair progressed from hate to a passionate love the changes in body language is well done. Though I saw this movie many years ago- its power to address class wars, the battle between men and women and in inevitable conclusion has never left me.

I really loved this movie. I have to admit I only saw this because I heard of Madonna's remake and my love for the Goldie Hawn movie "Overboard", but...wow! Interesting, romantic, powerful, hard-to-watch, political, funny, sad, etc. This movie has it all. You can analyze this movie to death, but it will do it a disservice. Quite simply, it's about a bizarre romance that happens when two people who are total opposites, thus hating each other, are stranded on a remote island and must learn how to live together. By today's standards, this is a very un-P.C. movie: Male domination over a woman. However, it IS just a movie, not real life--don't let that put you off; and there are some scenes that are hard to take, but given the context of the characters, you might think to yourself--"is this deserved?" I think some parts are, and others--not at all. You might like this film if you liked Pedro Almodovar's "Atame! (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!)". This is a film you'll end up discussing with others after you've seen it. Also, I don't recommend viewing this around children or very impressionable teenagers.

What marvelous Italian sensibility! Italians have to be muted for drama, but give them comedy and they soar, it's who they are, who we are in general down South and all over the Mediterranean - boisterous, frivolous, yelling past each other out of some need to stay afloat, lest the silence bogs us down.

The allegory is of course as obvious as the characters, a shrill rich wife and a grumbling sailor, a communist we're told, on board her yacht during a cruise get stranded in a deserted island. Of course the dynamics shift - we see how easy and quick it is for him to become a tyrant now that he has the upper hand, how degrading for her to be ordered about. But then sex enters the picture and that changes everything; she's beaten around, almost raped and comes to love the submission.

As thin as the politics may be, so much more subversive when it becomes sexual. Rape fantasies are common in men and women alike, no reason to hide, and nothing peculiar about it - sex is after all in a primal way about the swap of power. But here just as about the fantasy is about to be consummated, at the peak of sexual paroxysm, this is the moment the filmmaker chose to have the man pull back and be revealed a delusional fool - she must cherish him as her god and so on.

The question that looms, a deep deep one, is was it the island? Or is it civilization that obscures? Which of the two shows their true self? Eventually they bond as lovers, but that is based on everything else we've seen. Do the limits imposed by being seen and known in public lead into delusions of self? Or does uninhibited freedom? Was it true love or was it a simple desire that found no limits to run up against? Who's to make all these impositions of truth anyway?

And we have to counterpoint all this against the richness of how they hold themselves in each other's eyes, some of the most expressive eyes in film - it's perfectly cast anyway, but the eyeplay between the two is marvelous, starting from that moment they share on the deck one night.

So this is fascinating stuff, about limits of self, about a slippery passion and having no logical truth that can explain beyond it, the only thing it asks is that you don't be moral about it. I can only imagine it better in Pasolini's hands, this lover of textures and breezes of air.

Swept Away (1974)

**** (out of 4)

Rich woman Raffaella Lanzetti (Mariangela Melato) and her servant Gennarino Carunchio (Giancarlo Giannini) end up being taken away from their boat as the current sweeps them away and onto a deserted island. Now that the tables are turned and her money isn't going to save her, Gennarino plans to teach the woman a lesson about life. Lina Wertmuller's SWEPT AWAY has been called a masterpiece by many, a evil picture by some and there are certainly some that fall somewhere in between. I think the reason there are so many mixed reviews of this film is that it's so hard to fully put your hands on it. I mean, a hundred different people could attend a screening of this film and then afterwards each of them would see something different. Is it a drama? It is a political message about living conditions between the rich and poor? Is it some sort of dark comedy where the poor man gets his day in the sun? SWEPT AWAY is a film I really loved watches even if parts of it certainly rubbed me the wrong way. The opening twenty-minutes or so clearly set up that this rich woman is rather heartless, cruel and uncaring about anyone other than herself. When she gets lost at sea you're happy to see her get a dose of reality but at the same time I can't say I enjoyed how she got it. There were times where the man physically abuses her and I must admit that this didn't make me care for him any or cheer for him to "teach" the rich woman. Yet, the film takes these ugly moments and does stuff with them that most films wouldn't dare try, nevermind actually making them work. Another rather remarkable thing is how much you can believe what you're seeing. I'm not going to ruin what actually happens but director Wertmuller really makes you believe it from start to finish and talk about the perfect ending. The film contains some very harsh language and some ugly violence but in its own pay these scenes are rather poetic. Another major plus is that both Melato and Giannini turn in two of the greatest performances you're going to see. Both of them were simply terrific in their roles and even when the tables are turned, both of them are believable and really sell the fire and passion of the story. SWEPT AWAY is a very unique film that's quite unlike any other including the countless imitations that have been released. The film manages to work on so many levels and it's greatness is also what many might see as ugliness.