Italian director Laura Bispuri’s (b. 1977) third feature film takes place on the outskirts of Rome in the cold of winter, in the claustrophobic apartment of Ostiaan Nena (Dominique Sanda), where the powerful and stoic but restless matriarch of a large family is celebrating her birthday. Each member of the mixed congregation has their own secrets, scars and facades. Set over the course of a single afternoon, the intimate play grows into a tapestry of shifting power relations, unfolding neuroses, awakening passions, betrayals, tensions, illnesses, bitterness and resentment, the psychological key to which (perhaps in homage to a similar creature in Fellini’s 1973 Amarcord) is the grandson’s domesticated peacock, Paco, a free creature chained up as a pet.
Sanda leads an eclectic ensemble in a stylised, understated role. Another gem in the cast is Alba Rohrwacher, one of the director’s favourite actresses also frequently seen on the screen at Midnight Sun. The sociogram of change, with its shifting dynamics, contains elements of hope as well as rough edges. In the end, the age-old question remains: do you choose truth, harmony – or both?
Lauri Timonen