Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
It’s not that easy to understand Italian sometimes, I see it most clearly during operas (on the one hand, languages always sound different when singing but you typically have a lot of time to think about what that line you heard meant, ehehe). Since I never really watch anything Italian, my vocabulary is absolutely terrible, and most likely I am falling victim to many false friends coming from French and Spanish. Even so, understanding some of the lines really helps getting into the feeling of films like this.
From what I can see, Vittorio de Sica’s romantic comedy films seem to get much more criticism than praise these days. I guess artsy people just want depressing neorealism and cannot imagine ‘their’ director to get into making movies for the big audience. I think it is quite obvious that nobody here is trying to show ‘the real Italy’ here; it is the exact opposite of neorealism after all. The first segment looks like a musical 90% of the time, the second almost exclusively plays in a car with only two characters and the last one is set in the apartment of a high class prostitute. There is absolutely no realism here, and the stories are all character-driven with a certain amount of suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy it.
Overall, I liked the second segment the best, quite closely followed by the third. The second segment showed a more serious, much less likable Sophia Loren as the vain, materialistic wife of a rich guy. She’s probably as despicable as anyone can be, but what made her character nice was the way she managed to lie to herself and her lover about it. It is ironic how the particular moment in which she makes him believe that their relationship had some deeper meaning actually leads to a car accident in which she finally reveals her true colors. Of course her disdain for everything good is being hinted at beforehand, and those details lead to the climax of this little story quite nicely. Overall I thought this segment was beautifully concise and well-written, where the chemistry between Loren and Mastroianni shows a different side of themselves for a change. I liked that.
The third segment was partially silly, but perhaps that is exactly what I enjoyed about it. Mara’s apartment looks enviable and her dresses make me want to have that body so I can dress like that every day. The segment is not only a feast for the eyes, but also provides much amusement, mostly contributed by Mastroianni’s character who may be too cowardly to marry the woman he likes, but is attached enough to play along with her charades. It is nice to see that Mastroianni, who tends to play rather dignified characters in the veins of 8 1/2, is willing to make silly faces in front of an undressing Sophia Loren.
The first segment, which I have yet to mention, was not exactly boring but seemed very dragged out. I liked its premise and it had many funny elements, but the end of the story was rather anticlimactic and I kept wondering if somebody else was going to happen. The way it was, this part was rather written as a fairytale at which end everybody was happy. Nevertheless, it IS irresponsible to produce one child after another, and I don’t quite see how this film is a commentary on poverty in Naples. It’s just too silly to be considered such. In fact, if Vittorio de Sica has ever made somebody superficial and silly, it’s this.
There are tons of “foreign” movies whose Oscar I find rather dubious (“Préparez vos mouchoirs” is a good example), and this film is very borderline on that. I personally liked it, but apart from the second segment I find its merit rather questionable in comparison to similar films, like “Divorzio all’italiana”. With that said, I do want to see “Seduced and Abandoned”.