By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Starring: Anita Caprioli | Paola Lavini | Pasqualina Scuncia | Renato Carpentieri | Salvatore Cantalupo
Country: france, italy, switzerland
Year: 2012
Running time: 100
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1886502/
Thom says: “Here’s another brilliant offering from the sensational Film Movement catalog. While alarmingly anti-Catholic the film risks even more by adding an absurdist, very dark-humor to the proceedings to create an irreverent thought-provoking masterpiece. 13-year-old Marta (an amazingly languid Vianello) returns to Southern Italy with her sweet, but useless mother and her bitch-of-a-sister after growing up in Switzerland. She starts at a new school where she’s forced into taking a catechism class run by a fascist-psychopath, Santa (a brilliant Scuncia) (she of enormous girth & piety) so she can be confirmed. After witnessing an atrocity perpetrated by the catechism commandant she runs away and is found by the local priest and is forced to travel with him on his sanctimonious, self-serving rounds. There is so much freshness her with super asides that pep up the surroundings. The local church has a psychedelic, neon cross that the priest wants to replace with an old wooden monstrosity that’s seen better days. The smarmy priest is desperate to change venues and is planning an enormous confirmation ceremony for the bored, visiting Cardinal and his mawkish factotum. Poor Marta tries to take it all in and we can see that she’s struggling to grow while being surrounded by dross. 5 cats”