Italy, 2008, 93 min.
Director: Marco Carniti
Writer: Marco Carniti, Paolo Di Reda, Carmen Giardina
Producer: Roberto Bessi, Antonio Guadalupi
Cast: Anna Galiena, Dario Grandinetti, Francesca Faiella, Jun Ichikawa, Lorenzo de Angelis, Jamil Hammoudi, Carmen Giardina, Danilo Nigrelli, Carolina Salvati, ,
Release: 2008/04/04
InfoVIEWED AT CINEMA GNOMO, MILANO
REALIZZATO CON LA COLLABORAZIONE FILM COMMISSION TORINO PIEMONTE
SLEEPING AROUND , the new film by MARCO CARNITI, is a bold look at contemporary sexuality in all of its variant manifestations. As such it strikes deep chords of recognition among young audiences today. The film presents honest , even graphic images of the search for love in contemporary Italian society. It exmines the severe consequences of sexual relationships divorced from love, the one true source of all human bonding.
To deal with such sensitive issues, the filmmaker must face head-on the varieties of sexual behavior. Marco Carniti has done this bravely, even beautifully. It takes some courage to put the human sexual act on screen for serious purpose. It also takes enormous directorial skill. The actors must perform, and the director must reveal, sexual acts that illuminate the truth about modern sexuality. To avoid dealing with sex in a film purporting to investigate its current state of practice would be self-defeating. What is necessary is to find the right balance between the sexual act and the relational circumstance that creates the conditions for its specific expression.
There are ten case studies in this film. Each story tracks the way in which sex has been divorced from love and the dire emotional consequences that follow. The reasons for the separation of sex and its parent emotion, love, is left for the viewer to discover. It is not an easy task.
But one general cause is suggested. The commodification of sex as a consumer good, stripped of all sustaining emotional value, and reduced to a form of commerce between men and women, this seems to be the fundamental source of the problem.
No longer the romantic bond that binds two people together, loveless sex becomes instead a weapon to achieve one’s ambitions, a form of power over another, more vulnerable partner, or even just a kind of entertainment for relief of everyday stress and tensions. The resulting confusion about the real role of sex in a partnership of trust and commitment is greatly compounded as each partner blames the other for the sterility of their relationship and the terminal loneliness that hangs over it.
To achieve so striking an exegesis about modern sex, without even the hint of pornography, is no small achievement. A perfect balance must be struck between sexual veracity and performance sensitivity. This is exactly what the actors deliver.
A great strength of this film is the stunning acting of a very singular cast and, behind that, the refined interpretive skill of its visionary director, Marco Carniti.
All the performances are strong, especially those of Anna Galiena and Dario Grandinetti in very complex roles of selfish, self-serving, but highly sympathetic characters, and also Carmen Giardina and Jamil Hammoudi in a destructive relationship mitigated only by their mutual love for a child.
Jun Ichikawa deserves special mention for her icily nuanced characterization of a scientist imprisoned in a relationship more hollow than the suicide corpses she excavates from the dank, polluted urban river. Her partner, Marco Foschi, gives a carefully calibrated rendition of the onanist man whose infantile needs cancel all possibility for happiness with his equally needy partner.
Lorenzo de Angelis delivers a heart wrenching performance as the tender boy whose first sexual awakening providentially finds a selfless partner, the gifted actress Francesca Faiella. It is her giving of open, spontaneous love, to this boy, who doubted its very existence, that celebrates love’s eternal regenerative power.
The film has a screenplay by Mr. Carniti and several British writers including Mark Ravenhill, the author of a raw, severely brutal drama about modern sexual mores in Britain that took the West End by storm several years ago.
The cinematography is by Paolo Ferrari whose lighting and compositional palette speak volumes about the claustrophobic world of the characters and the way in which they are trapped inside it, unable to extricate themselves from its crippling isolation .
SLEEPING AROUND is a startling first film from Marco Carniti and his producers. IF Italian cinema is to take its place again as one of Italy’s unique patrimonial art forms, then it is films like this one that will help make it happen. With admirable daring Carniti has taken a most difficult subject matter, modern sex, and dissected it, revealing its sad secrets inside and out. He has opened our eyes to what we are losing by substituting a predatory, zero-sum game. for the dizzying magic of shared conjugal love.
The will to love and accept all the pain and joy that comes from the emotional bond of complete commitment is what relationships are finally all about. Here is a film that honors this message with a mature exploration of love’s amazing possibilities. It is satisfying on every level and even, for this viewer, a little bit inspiring.
by Prof. Brendan Ward
by Prof. Brendan N. Ward
VIEWED AT CINEMA GNOMO, MILANO
REALIZZATO CON LA COLLABORAZIONE FILM COMMISSION TORINO PIEMONTE