LA SCONOSCIUTA
Italy, 2007, minutes, Colour.
Kseniya Rappoport, Michele Placido.
Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.
An impressive film. A very strong film.
While Italian director, Giuseppe Tornatore, made a world impact with Cinema Paradiso in 1988, it was a film of some sweetness and light as well as rueful memories about watching the movies in Italy in those days of parish priest censorship. Tornatore has taken on more serious themes in his Everybody’s Fine, A Pure Formality, The Starmaker and The Legend of 1900. However, after Malena in 2000, he did not make a film for six years. This is the film.
It is important to say that the core theme is one that is becoming more and more frequent in European cinema in recent years, human trafficking, especially trafficking for sexual purposes (Gitai’s The Promised Land, the Polish film And My Name is Justine, the Australian The Jammed, as well as films about workers like Nick Bromfield’s Ghosts and Ken Loach’s It’s a Free World). However, there is much more plot and character development in La Sconosciuta than this important issue.
The film begins joltingly as women are displayed for prying eyes – and later in the film we discover that the choosing of a woman had far more serious consequences that we initially imagines. This sex trade background recurs during the film as the central character, Irena, an exploited migrant from the Ukraine, continually remembers the humiliation, brutality and sex slavery she has experienced. These flashbacks have a narrative dramatic momentum of their own as well as their sudden eruption into Irena’s memories and emotions. The cumulative effect of this past story has an overwhelming impact on the audience. Graphic, though presented in jigsaw or mosaic pieces, we feel many emotions ourselves, sharing Irena’s suffering, her pain, her humiliation and shame as she is shamelessly used.
In the present, the narrative also has a powerful effect though it is not too difficult to pick up most of what has happened to Irena and why (though some elements emerge clearly only towards the end). Arriving in an Italian city, she seeks work but shows determination as to where she should live, where she should work, whom she should shadow and follow, where she must pry and investigate. This also has some harrowing consequences for a friendly fellow servant and the injury-prone daughter of the couple for whom she works as a nanny. The scenes where she tries to toughen up the little girl, relentlessly, (trying to make her fight back unlike what has happened in her own life) are emotionally disturbing.
As Irena moves through pain and challenges, as he past catches up with her and threatens a brutal retaliation, we are accompanying one of life’s victims through her torments and her interior anguish.
The performances are memorable. Russian actress Kseniya Rappoport has an extraordinary screen presence, able to portray the vivacious but abused blonde prostitute as well as the dignified and solemn dark Irena in the main part of the film. Her final close up is a marvellous portrait of sadness, resignation and a glimmer of joy. The supporting cast is very strong and veteran Michele Placido creates a horrendous character as the brutal pimp.
The score, which has a range of moods and styles, is by Ennio Morricone.
This is one of those films which explores the depths that human beings experience, exploited by vicious characters, trapped in moral squalor, who are profoundly affected by their sufferings and inflict pain on others, both innocent and guilty, in self-preservation, but who have an innate resilience that can lead to love and some redemption.
1.The impact of the drama? Portrait of human beings? Oppression? Redemption?
2.Europe in the 21st century? Eastern Europe, the status of women, sex slaves, pimps, violated, their lives, escape, the possibility of creating a new life?
3.The title, the various meanings?
4.The Italian town, the setting, migrants, the sex slaves, the customers, pregnancy and surrogacy, ordinary life, families, maids, caretakers, jewellers, school, courts? The credibility?
5.The Ennio Morricone score and its effect? Variety?
6.The opening, the masks, yet the naked women, the display, the choices, the eye through the hole, the tone, Irena and her being asked to strip, her being chosen?
7.The flashbacks to Irena’s story, the Ukraine, the migration, her pimp, the choices, the abuse, the sadomasochism? The midwife? The pimp, her pregnancies, nine, abortions, the doctor telling her she could have no children? Her getting the name of the parent, her escape?
8.Arrival in the town, her changed appearance, from blonde to dark, lonely, her memories and emotions, her quest?
9.The building, Matteo, offering him money, getting jobs, his infatuation with her and his approach, his sheltering her when she was in danger, her fear?
10.The variety of work, cleaning, her friendship with Gina, talking with her, going to the cinema, surreptitiously taking her keys, the tension in going to get the keys cut, the return, spilling the liquid on her dress, the return of the keys? Gina and the story of the child, the injuries, the falls, Gina talking, Irena’s being desperate, tripping Gina, her injuries? Her remorse, the visits to the institution, talking to her, confessing? Signing the money for the little girl? Gina becoming conscious and asking questions?
11.Irena’s memory of her life, the symbolism of the strawberries, memories of Nello, searching for his body in the garbage hill, the child, the photo, memories, the quest for revenge on the pimp?
12.The tension in the sequence in the supermarket, the alarm going off, her being held up, the money in her pocket – and her being let go?
13.The job as a nanny, the interview, the mother accepting her, Matteo’s influence, banging the child with the door, the child’s hostility? The father, his being busy? The jeweller? The mother and father and their work at home? Their love for their daughter? The tensions, Irena learning to drive, taking the girl to school, the blackmail on overhearing the parents squabbling and her sadness, their little girl changing in her attitudes, coming to love Irena? Irena buying the castle, the outings, on the swings? The bruises, the disease, the doctors unable to do anything, Irena deciding to test the little girl, pushing her down, making her get up, fight, the character of the girl developing? Yet Irena singing the lullaby?
14.Irena cleaning up the holiday house, the parents away, cooking, finding the safe, finding the adoption documents?
15.The game of hide and seek, the consequences, the little girl seeing the man with the newspaper, telling her mother, her mother coming to interrogate Irena? The friendship with the mother, trust, the massage? Her being fired? The visit, the threats? Leading to her death?
16.The stabbing, the pimp and Irena thinking she had killed him? His arrival, reading the newspaper, the visit, wanting his money back, the threats, the little girl’s mother and his killing her? Irena and her getting time, the money, taking him to the burial place, killing him with the spade and burying him?
17.The car being dredged, the grief of the father, Irena’s arrest, her helping with the little girl, going to the hospital, getting her to eat? The father and his appreciation? The farewell to the little girl – getting her to write letters?
18.The end, released from prison, older, waiting, seeing Thea grown up, the rueful smile? An appropriate ending for the film?
19.The different levels of treatment: social, domestic, family, migration, sexual opportunism, slavery?
