By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Eugène Green
Starring: Arianna Nastro | Christelle Prot Landman | Fabrizio Rongione | Ludovico Succio
Country: france, italy
Year: 2015
Running time: 101
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3182590/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Kyle says: “LA SAPIENZA opens with an exquisite Italian lake shot accompanied by Claudio Monteverdi’s six-part ‘Magnificat’ from 1610, transitioning into an Italian Baroque vista and a contemplation of architectural, sculptural, and painting details. We are watching the main titles, learning that this Magnificat performance is by Concerto Italiano directed by Rinaldo Alessandrini. Only later will we learn that the masterpiece is the work of troubled eccentric 17th century Swiss-Italian architect Francesco Borromini. But so potent is the allure of the match between visual and aural magnificence that one feels endangered of overdosing on perfection before the story is even engaged. The work in question is Borromini’s Church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, but an untranslated 1532 quotation from François Rabelais about Sapienza, or Sapience (Wisdom, understanding, which the Oxford English Dictionary discloses is ‘Now rare in serious use’) actually starts the film: ‘Wisdom enters not into a malicious mind, and science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul’
“As the camera pans over grim soulless contemporary factories outside Paris, architect Alexandre Schmidt (Fabrizio Rongione) is awarded the Golden Cord for Lifetime Achievement. In his acceptance speech, he notes his refusal to build churches and synagogues, since ‘I am a materialist, and despite my Swiss origins, a true proponent of French secularism’. He has designed factories, which he calls ‘modern cathedrals’, and we view them with increasing discomfort, as the camera concludes its tour on a sign at the top of a building – ‘Life’s Good’. But we know it isn’t, not for Schmidt nor his sad wife Aliénor (Christelle Prot Landman), a distinguished scholar dedicated to enervating community behavioral studies. As the two dine in a restaurant and raise their wine glasses in celebration, the distance between them is made to seem endless by director Green, especially since that distance is emotional, not geographic.
“That divide recurs when contractors for whom Schmidt has designed a building demand modifications due to an obvious ‘money-for-value problem’ that necessitates filling in two ponds. Schmidt protests that too much demolition is done these days, including a few projects he originally designed, ‘replaced, no doubt, by equally inhumane abstractions generating as much misery as mine did before being flattened in turn’. Alexandre announces to Aliénor he has decided to go to Italy, in order to return to his book on Francesco Borromini, which she calls ‘an old project’ but asks to go with him, since she also needs ‘to think’.
“Their first visit is to Bissone, the birthplace of Borromini in Lugano, Switzerland. But the more historic and picturesque their surroundings, the more emphatic is the alienation of Alexandre and Aliénor, both from their surroundings and from each other. Increasingly they seem like zombies wandering in an alien landscape. Until they encounter Goffredo (Ludovico Succio) and his sister Lavinia (Arianna Nastro), suffering a fainting spell while walking along Lake Maggiore in Stresa. He is an aspiring architect, his sister a troubled home-schooled waif. Aliénor warms to the potential human connection to Goffredo and Lavinia, while Alexandre departs for Lugano, unmoved by Goffredo’s architectural interests.
“Aliénor pays a convalescent call upon Lavinia, after which Goffredo shows her his design for a European city whose central element is a temple for all religions, which can be made plausible by the architect’s skill in summoning light. We recall the other quotation at the beginning of the film, which is translated – ‘Sapience is more active than any actions, for it reflects eternal light’ — in this instance the reference being to spiritual wisdom. Goffredo has awareness of spiritual enlightenment in architecture that seems to enclose a person at the same time encouraging freedom. Aliénor recognizes a potential bond between Goffredo and Alexandre, and invites him to dinner, at which she manipulates plans so that Goffredo accompanies Alexandre to Rome, while she stays in Stresa to look after Lavinia.
“The ease with which Aliénor and Lavinia commence discussing Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is sharply contrasted by Green with the awkwardness of Goffredo and Alexandre in making small talk about language, although we are aware that architecture will become the connection between older disenchanted architect and idealistic younger student. This happens in Turin at a building designed by Guarino Guarini, influenced by the ghostly presence of Borromini in their first conversation about the art of architecture. Our awe in the cinematic presence of such architectural beauty is an inchoate response to a spiritual quest by both Alexandre and Goffredo for enlightenment through language. As they contemplate the magnificence of the building they have just exited, Alexandre explains to Goffredo: ‘But Borromini went beyond knowledge and beauty’. Goffredo inquires what that ‘beyond’ might be. Alexandre says he does not know the word, to which Goffredo responds that Alexandre must find it.
“The incredible richness of LA SAPIENZA derives in part from each pair of characters learning from, and altering perceptions and behavior in response to, the other pair, the younger ones becoming confidants and acolytes, even children the older ones never had but dreamed about. Alexandre and Aliénor find a connection to life restored, and a zest for experience inspired, as well as potential interest in mentoring. In a complicated explanation of the relationship between Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, Alexandre concludes by announcing to Goffredo, ‘I am Bernini’ — — leaving dangling in the air the idea of Goffredo as Borromini avatar. Aliénor discusses Lavinia’s intractable illness with her mother, clearly understanding its nature and treatment in a way her mother does not.
“When Alexandre turns his chair so his back is to the piazza and Goffredo wonders why, he tells him that at his age, all memories are unpleasant, because of the distance between past and present. Goffredo responds, ‘There is no distance. If you look behind you, you’ll see that your past is here now’. At such moments, Green shifts emotional weight onto youthful Goffredo and Lavinia to suggest their easy access to spiritual insights unavailable to their elders, whose greater experience of life does not open them up to greater possibilities.
“At the conclusion of a conversation about their dead child, Alexandre asks, ‘What do ghosts need to find peace?’ Goffredo answers, ‘An architect, to give them a place. And light’. Meanwhile Lavinia, much recovered from her mysterious fainting malady, and Aliénor, in an uncharacteristically expansive mood, attend a performance of Molière’s 1673 play ‘The Imaginary Invalid’, afterwards discussing ‘Argan’s double resurrection’ as ‘a metaphor for psychoanalysis’. Further, ‘His simulated deaths are the expression of his neurosis’ and ‘He resuscitates when hidden realities come to light’. Again the word ‘light’ appears in a scene touching upon both emotional intimacy and spiritual enlightenment. In parting for the night, Goffredo offers to talk with Alexandre should it prove necessary, as he always leaves his door unlocked. When Alexandre raises the issue of safety, Goffredo discloses that he always lights a candle. ‘So I’m protected. By the light’.
“The visit of Alexandre and Goffredo to Borromini’s Church Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza features a roving cinematographic exploration accompanied by Alexandre’s description of architectural highlights, concluding with the camera, along with their hearts and minds as well as ours, soaring aloft to the top of the swirling spire. Alexandre says, ‘We encounter many obstacles that draw us back toward earth but always find ourselves moving upwards again, until, via an inescapable trajectory, we reach a source of light’. An interpolation of a melancholic Borromini being looked after by an apprentice student, also named Francesco, in whom we see only hands and feet, concludes with his suicide. When Francesco the younger asks him why he has stabbed himself, Borromini responds, ‘To find the light’.
“The film concludes with a reunion between Goffredo and Lavinia, who go rowing joyfully, and Alexandre and Aliénor, who converse lovingly. He says to his wife: ‘I thought I was an artist, I thought I was knowledgeable. But the source of beauty is love, and the source of knowledge is light. At the source, we find sapience’. She calls it ‘a beautiful word’. He agrees, continuing: ‘But forgotten, like so many things’. She agrees, saying: ‘I’d forgotten many things too’. Alexandre concludes: ‘If I glimpse sapience, I want to transmit it. By providing a place for those who seek light’. The two couples wave appreciatively to each other, and Monteverdi’s ‘Magnificat’ returns as counterpoint to director Green’s cinematic magic.
“I have read that Green’s very particular style is reminiscent of Robert Bresson and Manoel de Oliveira, perhaps also Jacques Rivette. Maybe, particularly Bresson. To me the seeming flat affect in relentless close ups of the four actors reveals an emotional intimacy that is almost terrifying, and quite unlike anything in my experience, leading me to place this group of actors among my Chlotrudis nominations for Ensemble Cast. Cinematography by long-time collaborator Raphael O’Byrne, production design by Giorgio Barullo, editing by Valérie Loiseleux, and both original screenplay and direction by Eugène Green are also among my choices for the best of 2015. This is an almost inconceivable rarity in contemporary cinema, a film on art, life, love and spirituality that holds up the mirror and finds more to reflect than is possible to absorb or describe initially. A sly, smart, subversive treasure of a movie, which I have the honor to give the highest possible recommendation.
“At the Q & A last year for LA SAPIENZA, I wrote down Eugène Green’s observation that cinema offers us fragments of the world, through which we search for hidden spiritual energy. Recently I stumbled upon a listing for a CD on London Symphony Orchestra’s own label of the Symphony No. 10 by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, influenced by the life and work of Francesco Borromini, including texts both by and about Borromini. That CD is playing as I write this. In going through a box of books I had saved but forgotten about, I found Lord Clark’s Civilisation, published to accompany his 1970 PBS television series on Western European art, which vividly conjured scenes of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s Baroque ceilings soaring both cinematically and musically — just as Borromini’s do in Green’s LA SAPIENZA. I thought LA SAPIENZA was one of the best films of 2014 when I saw it screened at the New York Film Festival, and now I think it one of the best Chlotrudis-eligible films of 2015, having seen it twice on Netflix. 5 cats
“Seen Sunday, September 28, 2014, at the New York Film Festival, Francesca Beale Theater, Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Monday and Tuesday, November 30 and December 1, 2015, on Netflix, New York.”