Commedia Italiana:Moviemov Italian Film Festival (2)

The first film that we saw at Moviemov:Italian Film Festival was, on the surface, a romantic comedy, but its director had some tricks in the bag in store for us. Let's now take a look at the second film, shown on the first day of the festival's regular run. 

• "The Pizza Triangle" (Drama della gelosia, 100 mins) by Ettore Scola

This film by acclaimed filmmaker Ettore Scola can be rightfully called a tragicomedy. In fact, its Italian title literally translates as "Tragedy of a Jealousy" (which, in the opening credits, was followed by a subtitle which says "It's All in the News"). In the opening scene, we see a crime being re-enacted in slow motion as the investigators look on. We learn in a short while that this was actually a crime of passion and how it came about to this is what makes up the film's narrative drive. The truth is, on my part, regardless of the film's genre and plot, "The Pizza Triangle" is not to be missed for the sheer fact that it features three of Italian cinema's A-list actors, each of whom had been under the tutelage of master filmmakers:the incomparable Marcello Mastroianni (Federico Fellini's "8 1/2" and "La dolce vita"), the beautiful Monica Vitti (Michelangelo Antonioni's "L'Eclisse" and "Red Desert") and the debonair Giancarlo Gianini (Lina Wertmueller's "Seven Beauties" and "The Seduction of Mimi"). And now, all three were under the guidance of an equally-acclaimed filmmaker (director of "The Ugly, the Dirty and the Bad", for which he won the Cannes Best Director prize and of the Oscar Best Foreign-Language Film nominees "Le Bal" and "The Family"). From the few films of Scola that I saw, mostly comedies or at least laced with humor, I notice that each of them is marked by a distinctive trait, that is to say, not exactly following a consistent pattern or style (unlike, say, the films of Antonioni). "The Family" never for once strays from its interior settings, being set exclusively within the household;"Le Bal" progresses its narrative by means of the events in a dance ballroom through the years;"The Ugly, the Dirty and the Bad" is memorable for its virtuoso long tracking shots, decadent humor and an abjectivity that really sticks to the viewers' skins;and he even has a "Beauty and the Beast" adaptation in reverse! It's really a wonderful experience seeing a classic piece of art cinema on the big screen, all in its restored quality. 

"The Pizza Triangle", however, somewhat shares an affinity with the sensibility of "The Ugly, the Dirty and the Bad". It has the same gallows humor, it borders on the outrageous, the surreal and the absurd, and some of its milieu and characters (most especially the love-lorn and ruminating working-class character of Mastroianni, for which he won the Cannes Best Actor prize) are steeped in abject muck and mire, so much so that flies literally follow them around. How else to describe, for instance, the scene wherein Mastroianni and Vitti make love amid heaps of garbage? Or the one wherein Mastroianni enlists the help of a gypsy to win back Vitti's love? Or that subversively "unromantic" final shot? Altogether, "The Pizza Triangle" is a film that threatens to burst off the screen or that teeters on the verge of a nervous breakdown, as it's all-in insane, wacky, lethal, subversive and emotional. Indeed, an exceptional piece of '70s art cinema. 

("The Pizza Triangle":Essential arthouse cinema.)