LA PIVELLINA
Italy, 2009, 100 minutes, Colour.
Patrizia Gerardi, Walter Saabel, Asia Crippa, Tairo Coroli.
Directed by Tizza Coviova and Rainer Frimmel.
La Pivellina is almost a semi-documentary, a story of a fifty-year-old woman, her life on the outskirts of Rome with a circus community. Looking for her dogs one day, she comes across an abandoned baby and takes it home. The husband is more cautious than she. She believes the mother will come back. She enlists the help of a young boy who has been abandoned by his parents and lives with his grandmother. The film, very much in the style of a home movie, focuses on the woman’s attentions to the baby, the detail of the baby’s life, the loving care that the boy gives it. There are also police raids and questions, pictures of circus and fair people who find it difficult to make a living and get an audience.
The film is warmly made, the characters portray their roles quite convincingly. However, it is rather long for its subject, and will be appreciated by those who dote on babies and looking at babies on screen.
1.The impact of the film? Real story? Its style? Intended audience?
2.The focus on babies, their needs, their behaviour? Their relating to adults? Children caring for babies? The detail?
3.The Rome setting, on the outskirts, the fences and gates, the advertisements? The caravan life? The circus people? Trying to perform in a piazza? On the move? The down-and-out kind of circus and fair? The musical score?
4.Patti, her age, searching for her dog, finding the baby, bringing it home, her husband and his reaction? Life in the caravan? Her attention to detail with the baby? The note, expecting the mother to return, not going to the police? Getting the help of Tairo? The detail of day-by-day life, meals, going for walks, playing with the baby, the animals? The questions by the police? The attempt to put on a performance in the square and nobody turning up? The mother ultimately coming back, surrendering the baby?
5.The husband, love for his wife, hard work, wary about the baby, wanting to go to the police? His going on the trip?
6.Tairo, his background, at school, students? Grandmother? Coming to help the baby, his care for it and great affection? The detail of his looking after the baby?
7.The background of the families, the school, ordinary life, the shops, shopping?
8.The mother returning, the reason for her going, the future for the baby?
9.The film and its home movie style, the close-ups of the baby, walking, eating, its growing affection for Patrizia, its wanting to stay.
