Emanuele Crialese
Although born in Rome in 1965, Emanuele Crialese has Sicilian roots, to which he pays tribute in film after film. In 1991 he leaves for the USA where he studies film direction at New York University. After making several shorts, he directs his first feature-length movie Once We Were Strangers (1997), in New York. The year was 1997, the film was in English and was awarded several prizes, among which the Valenciennes International Film Festival Award. He then decided to return to his homeland and met international success (both in festivals and art houses) with his first Italian work Respiro (2002), shot on Lampedusa Island in Sicily in 2002, with Vincenzo Amato and Valeria Golino in her most ambitious part to-date. In 2006, his next film Nuovomondo (2006), once again with Vincenzo Amato but without Valeria Golino (Charlotte Gainsbourg was better suited to play an English-speaking emigrant), examined the question of emigration to the States at the beginning of the 20th century, more particularly from the perspective of poor Sicilian peasants.Il secondo film del regista Emanuele Crialese è un'opera strana e difficile, come la storia che racconta. Grazia (Valeria Golino) è la moglie di uno dei tanti pescatori di Lampedusa, ma non si è mai adattata alla piccola, monotona vita dell'isola: fa il bagno nuda, canta a squarciagola le canzoni di Patty Pravo, e spesso si chiude nei suoi silenzi che solo uno dei figli, Pasquale, si sforza di capire. Gli "altri", quelli normali, vorrebbero convincere il marito a farla vedere da uno psichiatra, ma lei preferirebbe morire.
La storia è quasi inesistente, fatta più che altro di singole inquadrature che tendono a "fotografare" l'opprimente realtà dell'isola. Valeria Golino presta alla protagonista l'infinita tristezza del suo sguardo perennemente altrove.
A pungent portrait of a fishing community on the island of Lampedusa (off the western coast of Sicily), "Respiro" is set in the present but evokes a primitive existence that really hasn't changed much over the last half century. The main character, Grazia (Valeria Golino), is a beautiful but emotionally unstable fisherman's wife and the mother of three whose wild mood swings and erratic behavior begin to rankle the town and to precipitate domestic havoc. When her family and neighbors decide to send Grazia to Milan for treatment, she runs away and hides in a cave by the sea. In a film that begins in a neo-realist mode, Grazia's self-exile eventually takes on a mythic dimension. — Stephen Holden,
(The New York Times)
Une jeune mère (Valéria Golino) a du mal à se faire aux conventions sociale de l'île sur laquelle elle vit... On r'fait le film A l'époque où l'émancipation de la femme bât son plein, il existe des endroits pas très lointains, où l'essentiel du combat reste à accomplir. Ici, dans le port de pêche de Lampedusa situé au large de la Sicile, les us et coutumes restent très machistes. Emanuele Crialese observe sans trop parler, suggère des visages où les regards en disent long. Un regard surtout... celui de Grazia, au bord de la crise de nerf et de l'asphyxie. La pensée, la parole, devenues interdites, font place aux hurlements de douleur. Puis, parce que rien n'y fait, à la mise en scène du suicide, comme ultime respiration. Une respiration comme un coup de pied dans la fourmilière de la tradition et de l'immobilisme. Mais la grandeur de ce film est de ne pas vomir son propos. Au contraire, la révolte est silencieuse, délicatement esquissée, poétiquement suggérée.
Un combat de femme avec les armes de la féminité pour une fable moderne, qui transforme le réalisme lourd du quotidien en magie légère poétique. Le cinéma italien, comme l'héroïne de ce film, au bord de l'asphyxie, trouve ici une merveilleuse respiration, un magnifique rayon de soleil sous le ciel européen.
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