underground cinema

Seven Beauties

3 oktober 20:30 - 22:30

SEVEN BEAUTIES / Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975)
Directed by Lina Wertmüller
116 minutes
In Italian with English subtitles

This film is set during WWII, and opens with its main character Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini) trudging through a dark and muddy forest in the middle of nowhere. He and his friend approach a clearing, where they witness a scene of mass execution committed by German soldiers. The debate that follows between these two characters is whether or not it is a moral imperative to intervene or better to run away and remain silent. Thus this film's main theme is set up right from the beginning - the horrors of war and the terrible decisions that have to be made to save one's own skin.

Part anti-war film and part black comedy, this film was one of the greatest made in Europe in the 70s, and somehow it seems to have been almost forgotten. Unlike today, back in the 70s women were actually allowed to make movies (crazy, huh?), and this is a prime example. Not only was the director Lina Wertmüller the first woman ever to have a film nominated for an academy award, Seven Beauties got an additional three academy nominations that year!

Hell, Seven Beauties is a film that you might even actually learn something from... in other words, you just might carry something precious away with you that could maybe even change the way you think about life... and that's rare these days! Indeed this film was made in a time when cinema and books had the power to change the course of people's lives, and wasn't there only for entertainment.

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