Little Lips

i think it is interesting to know the biography of the Italian artist who directed this movie "piccole labbra". Mimmo(Domenico) Cattarinich was born in Rome and since 39 years his study overlooks largo Federico Fellini (nearby Veneto street in Rome). He is one of the historical leaders of the Italian photography. As photographer his history begins in the half of the fifties in the Dino De Laurentis film studios. At seventeen years old he interrupted the studies of accounting to follow the great myth of the cinema from near. He began to work as assistant of dark room and subsequently as photographer of scene, with different directors like:Mario Bava,Blasetti,Bolognini,Lizzani, Sergio Leone, Pasolini,Antonioni Fellini,Almodovar,Benigni and others more. "Piccole Labbra" (Little Lips) is his only movie as director.

Piccola Labbra hit me harder than I expected.

This is the kind of 70s European cinema that feels raw, intimate and strangely hypnotic - the pacing, the silence, the grain, the way the camera almost breathes with the characters. It's not a "comfortable" film, but it's definitely one that stays under your skin.

The atmosphere is stunning. The cinematography has that timeless, melancholic softness that only late-70s film stock gives you, and the score is absolutely gorgeous - haunting pianos and strings that wrap the whole story in a bittersweet tone. Seriously, the music alone is worth the watch.

Narratively, it's a psychological tragedy disguised as a quiet drama.

The movie explores loneliness, projection, trauma, and emotional dependence with a subtlety that modern films rarely dare to use. The protagonist is a broken man looking for comfort in the wrong place, and the film never excuses him - it just shows his mental collapse with brutal honesty. The girl becomes more of a mirror than a character: she represents youth, escape, purity, possibility... and that's exactly why things fall apart.

The ending wrecked me.

It's tragic, inevitable and deeply human - the final moments tie the entire psychological arc together with a punch to the stomach.

What works:

Beautiful, poetic cinematography

Incredible soundtrack - emotional, eerie, unforgettable

Strong atmosphere and emotional weight

The courage to show obsession and grief in a raw, non-manipulative way

What might divide audiences:

Slow, ambiguous structure

Themes that can be uncomfortable (typical of 70s European cinema)

A morally gray narrative that offers no easy answers

Overall, Piccola Labbra is a haunting, emotional, art-driven film that deserves to be revisited and discussed.

Not for everyone - but for those who love atmospheric European dramas, this is a hidden gem.

This movie is not suitable for everyone. If you have strong morals than it may be good for you to skip over this movie. If however you are able to keep and open mind about most things than you may possibly enjoy this movie as much as I did.

The best way I can explain this movie is Lolita but with no censorship on the scenes in which makes the male figure fall for the young girl. The story is way different of course but the similarities are there.

If I have a complaint it would be of the acting but then that could be more due to the age of the film, thus being a different style to what it is now.

In the end this is definitely a movie I will come back to down the track. The story was enough to keep me intrigued and did not go the way I expected so gave me a nice surprise in that regard.

I was lucky in the fact that the copy I watched was English dubbed that even though reading subtitles would have been fine it made the movie more enjoyable in that aspect. Hope everyone else is as lucky.

Seriously, the absolute nerve of this film.

The premise? Truly powerful, they said. We start with a World War I veteran, psychologically broken, physically ruined, having his junk obliterated by a bullet-or whatever the hell had him neutered.

Naturally, the next major plot development is that this shell-shocked soldier immediately pivots to creeping on a little girl named Eva, because that's apparently what PTSD leads to...

Now we see all that genius writing, all this "trauma" and "character study" quickly devolved into this thin, obvious excuse to eroticize Katya Berger.

They could've straight-up binned the WWI trauma backstory and filmed the same content in some back-alley porn studio. The difference would be truly negligible.