Sunday, March 31, 2013

Interval Twelve - Seven Beauties

A Review of Seven Beauties, a film by Lina Wertmuller
                                             
                                                                                                   
                                                  The cover of the film Seven Beauties
Released in 1975, this movie received nominations for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Film from the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Screen Director’s Guild, and New York Film Critics Circle Awards.  
   Ths review  is written primarily by an associate who has served as a guide to all things Jewish, such as ceremonies and prayers for the blog A Ball for Genia. Here is his reaction to the movie—
   I’d never seen Lina Wertmuller’s movie Seven Beauties although, as a Jew, I’ve tried to see all movies, documentaries, docudramas  and fictions  relating even remotely to the Holocaust. Seeing Seven Beauties now, at a considerable distance from World War II, still evokes emotions relating to the horrors of that time.  Early in the movie, it becomes obvious that the nominations of Lina Wertmüller as Best Director, Giancarlo Giannini as Best actor, and the movie as Best Foreign Film, are justified.
   The star of Seven beauties is Giancarlo Giannini, who brilliantly plays Pasqualino Frafuso.  Because of Pasqualino’s reputation as a seducer (and perhaps a pimp), he gains the title the name Pasqualino Settebellezze (Pasqualino Seven Beauties), which implies that he is irresistible to women.  (He confesses he doesn’t know why because he thinks himself pretty ugly.)           
                                         Pasqualino Frafuso
     But this “virtue” proves to be a life saver later on when he is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.
     Torn between devotion to his sisters, and striving for success in his professional activity, he wends his way through a mixture of comic and tragic adventures. One of his adventures results in the accidental shooting of his sister’s fat pimp, and the problem of disposing of the body. He solves the problem by chopping the body up and loading it into three very heavy bundles, which he plans on shipping off  to three different cities. But the bundles  are very heavy—so heavy that he staggers about much as Charlie Chaplin would, which provides a comedy bit, especially when he has to fight off a big dog that is very curious as to what those bundles contain.                                 


      He is caught, of course, but convinces a trial court that he is insane.  While in an asylum and serving as an orderly, he rapes a female patient who is bound to a bed. To get rid of him, the asylum keepers force him into the Italian army. Apparently he deserts the army with a  friend, wanders around in a forest, steals food, and is caught by German soldiers, who put the two into a concentration camp.  Conditions  in the camp are so awful that he decides he will do anything to survive.
                                  
                                              Pasqualino the prisoner
     He decides to seduce  the camp commander, who is a formidable woman who must weigh at least 350 pounds, and who deals out death to the prisoners every day. He hopes he can do it—his survival depends on it.  His mother told him that every woman has a bit of sweetness in her and perhaps this one does.                                  
                                           
     He first attracts her attention by whistling a love song when she is near, then confesses his love.  She takes him up on it, and brings him to her chamber for the event.  But in another dark comic scene, he can’t “get it up”  because of hunger. She feeds him and he succeeds.  As a reward, she puts him in charge of his barracks, but only on the condition that he select six inmates for execution by a firing squad; otherwise, she will order the immolation of him and his entire barracks. He has no choice but to commit this atrocity in spite of whatever principles he has left. In addition, he has to shoot his best friend with a bullet to the head.
     But he does survive the concentration camp and the war, and returns to his village to the  triumphant acclaim of his sisters, who are now very happy in the company of numerous American soldiers and sailors.   But Pasqualino Settebelleze is a changed man, much chastened, and no longer the flippant lothario—        

                                          Pasqualino chastened                      He proposes marriage to a local beauty, and vows to have children—many children. . . and even hundreds of children!
In summaryIs Seven Beauties truly a Holocaust movie?  The components of this genre always seemed to be Nazis, Jews (or their persecuted counterparts such as gypsies, homosexuals, or captives from opposing countries).  Here we have allies of the Nazis, who, despite their illegal and/or immoral activities, still suffer the depredations of torture and imprisonment under Mussolini’s friends.  The depiction of the camp, its inmates and staff, appear to be as evil as movies showing Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other hellholes of Nazi ignominy.                                                 
The primary members of the cast of Seven Beauties are:    
    Giancarlo Giannini as Pasqualino Frafuso, aka Settebellezze
   Fernando Rey as Pedro, the Anarchist Prisoner
   Shirley Stoler as The Prison Camp Commandant
   Elena Fiore as Concettina (a sister)
   Piero Di Iorio as Francesco (Pasqualino's comrade)
   Enzo Vitale as Don Raffaele
If you want to learn more about Seven Beauties, click on the link to Wikipedia.
Seven Beauties comes in a two-disk set.  The second disk provides for an interview with a charming Lina Wertmüller who is an ebullient 78 years of age. She relates the history of Italian films and the actors, based on her experience of the past 50 years.  It requires an understanding of Italian to really enjoy her life story.

                                      
 The indispensable Wikipedia offers an excellent summary of the life and work of Lina Wertmüller. The movie Seven Beauties is available from your local DVD store, and from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.                       

*****            

EPISODE THIRTEEN will be published on Monday, April 8. There we will find our  little group of refugees huddled in the house of Herr Wachter as the bombs fall around them.  An Episode Fourteen is planned, but will be cancelled, of course,  if the refugees do not survive the bombing. So, watch for Episode Thirteen, which will appear a week from this Monday!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Episode Twelve



                            An Evening of Bombs
   It is again the living room of Herr Wachter. Darkness has fallen,  and the room is dimly lit by the chandelier and scattered candles. It is Friday, the evening of the Sabbath, and a collection of nondescript chairs, stools and benches have been arranged for the congregation. The Rabbi is alone, and is preparing for the Kiddush, the ceremony that brings in the Sabbath. He is humming a passage from the ceremony. Since there is no Cantor, he must be both Rabbi and Cantor. Wachter enters, carrying a bottle.
Wachter: Nearly ready, Rabbi?
Rabbi:  Nearly so.
Wachter: Here’s wine for the ceremony. Not the best, but there's nothing best left.
Rabbi:  Thank you. More than adequate. Will you be joining us this evening, Herr   Wachter?
Wachter: No. Again you must excuse me.
Rabbi:  It would a great honor, and I mean that from the heart.
Wachter: I in turn am honored. You're not still trying to convert me, by any chance?
Rabbi:  Oh, no! Well … the thought had crossed my mind.
Wachter: You seem nervous.
Rabbi:  I am always nervous before a ceremony.
Wachter: But you've had very large congregations--surely a small group like this shouldn't make you nervous.
Rabbi:  It is the same, whether large or small--I'm nervous. And tonight especially, because I feel that we are ... are in great danger. Also, we have a special things to be thankful for.
Wachter: We do? What are they?
Rabbi:  The main thing—we still live. But then, look there--
   Dolek and Sharon have entered hand in hand, and are sitting quietly on a bench in the corner, lost in each other.
Wachter: Yes. That is special. I am glad.
   An air raid siren is heard

Rabbi:  And tonight, we'll pray especially for protection from the bombs.
Wachter: They're friendly bombs.
Rabbi:  Friendly bombs?
Wachter: I heard it on the radio. Allied bombs. the Allied armies are very near.
Rabbi:  Friendly bombs kill just as quick. If one hits this house, or sets it on fire, we'll be exposed to the world.
Wachter: Then pray extra hard tonight, Rabbi. Oh, Rabbi, I have been thinking ... about Heinrich Strassel.

Rabbi:  It is difficult not to think about Heinrich Strassel.
Wachter: Did I argue well?
Rabbi:  As well as one can argue with the devil.
Wachter: Yet I believe I lost the debate. I told him Thou Shalt Not Kill. Then I killed him.
Rabbi:  If you had not done so, it would have been death for all of us.
Wachter: I killed him in anger--shot him like a mad dog.
Rabbi:  He was a mad dog, and earned the death of a mad dog. He showed himself not only as a murderer of millions, but a thief and a lecher as well. Do you know, I believe there is some truth in our ancient legend of demon possession.
Wachter: He seemed to be two beings in one body. He treated Genia as a daughter, yet—
Rabbi:  –-yet he would have sent her to Auschwitz, without compunction. Pride and vanity and lust for power opened him to invasion by a Dybbuk--a Dybbuk from the uttermost depths of hell.
Wachter:  I killed him. I cannot forget that.
Rabbi:  You have saved many lives, Herr Wachter. Perhaps the Lord owes you a death--a necessary death.
Wachter: A necessary death? I never thought of it like that.
Rabbi:  And what about those lives you have saved, and you have saved so many. It is written "he that saves a single life saves the world entire."
Wachter: That is well written, Rabbi. I must read your scriptures some day.
Rabbi:  I can recommend it. For now, forget Heinrich Strassel.
Wachter: He was a good man, once. Look at the monster he became.
Rabbi:  Perhaps God puts such men on earth so that we may see evil in the flesh, and to be so repelled by it that we will follow a righteous path.
Wachter: But the poison that corrupted him, made him into a monster--that poison didn't die with Heinrich Strassel. And it won't die with the Third Reich, even if the Allies win this war. It will continue to tempt and corrupt good men. Is there no antidote, Rabbi? What can be done?
Rabbi:  We can tell the world. Let good come from looking at the face of the evil that has been done to my people. Then their sacrifice will not have been completely in vain.
Wachter: What a price to pay for such a lesson.
Rabbi:  The price has been paid. Let it now become the debt of mankind. Say, if that sermon is any example, you'd not only make a good Jew, but a good Rabbi as well!
Wachter: [With a laugh] I believe it it time for me to retire from the scene.
Rabbi:  [As Wachter exits, the Rabbi says quietly] May the Lord bless you and keep you, Albert Wachter.
   Itzhak enters, hesitatingly.
Itzhak! Will you be joining us this evening?
Itzhak:  I'm not sure.
Rabbi:  I've been thinking . . . about what happened to your .. . uh. . .
Itzhak:   . . . what happened to my family? You don't have to mince words with me, Rabbi.
Rabbi:  You said they sang "Here our voice, Oh Lord".
Itzhak:  You said it is The Prayer for the Dead.
Rabbi:  Yes, the Kaddish. [Weighing his words] If they who were about to die could believe, Itzhak, how can you who was again given the gift of life, not believe?
Itzhak:  [After a pause] I see your point, Rabbi. I'll stay for the--Kiddush--is that what you call it?

Rabbi:  Yes. May God and our ancient traditions bring you peace, Itzhak.
Itzhak:  Peace I need, Rabbi.
Rabbi:   If you seek it, you will find it, my son. All right, then. Now! [Claps hands, calls] Time for Kiddush, everyone!
                                        End of Episode Twelve
And so the scene is prepared, and the faithful come together again for prayer and consolation, while the bombs fall on the city.  What will happen next?
Stay tuned for our next interval on Monday, April 1, closely followed by Episode Thirteen on Monday, April 8, where you can find out what happens next to the "family" at Albert Wachter's house.