For his 5e feature film, Italian filmmaker Emanuele Crialese (Respiro) went to draw on his own childhood memories to offer a caustic family chronicle.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
The immensity
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE VENICE MOSTRA
Penelope Cruz in The immensitya film by Emanuele Crialese.
A vibrant performance by Penélope Cruz
In a district of Rome, in the 1970s, lives a family with three children, the eldest of whom, aged 12, wants her identity to be masculine. Penélope Cruz, who plays in Italian a character of Spanish origin who has lived in Italy for a very long time, once again finds a way to deliver a vibrant performance. In the role of the mother who can only express her fantasy through her bond with her children, but whose urges for expression are suppressed in all other aspects of her life, the actress is remarkable. We will particularly remember these asides where scenes from variety shows of the time are recreated, during which Penélope Cruz is transformed into Rafaella Carrà…
Other people’s children
PHOTO MARCO BERTORELLO, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Rebecca Zlotowski, director of Other people’s children
A sensitive and contemporary portrait
There are no dramatic effects in Other people’s children, presented at the Mostra on Sunday in official competition. Rebecca Zlotowski (Grand Central) instead chose sincere emotion to describe the journey of a 40-year-old woman (Virginie Efira, excellent), who becomes attached to the 5-year-old girl whose new lover (Roschdy Zem, always perfect) is the father . Without anything being underlined in broad strokes, this situation forces the heroine to reflect on motherhood and on the desire to give birth or not. Borrowing a rarer point of view, the filmmaker thus focuses on the role of mother-in-law, in a relationship where the biological mother (Chiara Mastroianni) is also very present in the life of the child. What is the nature of attachment in these circumstances? And what happens next? Inspired by 1980s classics like Shoot the Moon (Alan Parker) or Kramer vs. Kramer (she starts out using a Vivaldi piece heard in Robert Benton’s film), Rebecca Zlotowski paints a sensitive and very contemporary portrait.