GIRL WITH A SUITCASE 1961
(La ragazza con la valigia)
Directed by Valerio Zurlini
120 minutes
In Italian with English subtitles
So many of the films from Italy in the 60s, and this one in particular, stand in glaring contrast to the bloated Hollywood cinema that we have today. You can feel them as part of your intimate world, as something that touches real life. The stories are not grand or epic, they are subtle and relevant. They are not escapist films... they just make us reflect on what's going on around us and within us. In other words, they resonate with our own lives.
Here, a young Claudia Cardinale leaps to the screen in one of her earliest performances. The story is simple: Lorenzo falls for Adia. She's an adult, he's underage. She's poor, he's wealthy. Nothing more needs to be said than that, because it's not about what unfolds but how it unfolds. Atmospheres, moments, glances are magical. There are scenes without anyone speaking that are absolutely stunning... everything is told through the eyes of the characters. Jacques Perrin (Lorenzo) gives a wonderfully understated performance as the young boy; a dead-on portrait of adolescent longing, the need to break out of one's shell. The razor-sharp black-and-white cinematography of Tino Santoni is sensuous and captures perfectly the bittersweet tale of two lost souls caught in an existential crisis. Valerio Zurlini is a dynamite director who has been criminally neglected because he only made a few films and didn't have a huge oeuvre. But a small gem like this can be more precious than the mediocre movies made by directors who have become famous. So it seems it's about time to drag his films out of obscurity before they are deleted altogether!
One viewer's response: "There are moments in this film when you feel your feet lift of the ground and you enter a pure state of movie nirvana. Only the Italians could bring together style, elegance, poise, wit, sensitivity and irony like this, and play it out in the real world with real characters. The fresh faces of the leads are a delight. It's really the quiet dignity of Perrin that carries the film while Cardinale is the sudden whirlwind that blows into his life. Technique is employed to brilliant effect: the waist-level camera, Zurlini's signature artistic shadows on the walls, and, most tellingly, the way distant characters gradually draw close to our position, a trick established with the first shot of the film. There's no finer kind of cinema."
DATUM EN TIJD | Donderdag 3 juli | aanvang film om 20.30 | zaal open om 20.00 | entree 3,00 | Vrienden gratis | Wees aanwezig voor 20.15 uur om verzekerd te zijn van een zitplaats!