Ferdinando Cefalù is a well-read graduate born in an aristocratic family and unhappily married to an annoying romantic. He would have grown accustomed to his life much like his father, being satisfied with the occasional grasp of the maid’s derriere, but he lays his eyes on young Angela. Angela is a distant cousin who is in town for the holidays and is living in the opposite house. Each night, Ferdinando watches her through the bathroom ventilator with a binoculars and is soon infatuated enough to make marriage plans.
But. 1961. There is no provision for divorce in the Italian Law.
Recently, a woman caught her husband in their bed with his mistress. Enraged, she murdered him. The great Attorney De Marzi defended her in court with his most eloquent monologues and won her the sympathies of the whole town along with a minimal punishment for the offence.
Ferdinando sees what every intelligent married Sicilian in love with another woman does. While scripting the Attorney’s speeches in his head, much like Amanda Woods in The Holiday (rather, it is the other way round), he plans meticulously. The initial text-book attempts fail, but the final original is good. He arranges for his wife to feel neglected by him and once again meet and fall in love with an old crush, for Ferdinando to obtain evidence of the affair he set up, for him to get acquainted to the Attorney, for the rest of the family to leave the house one night so that he can murder his wife in peace, for him to be married happily ever to Angela after serving the term.
I haven’t seen any other Italian movie with so many Italian stereotypes: the criminally-inclined fast-talking man, the silly romantic woman with a most annoying voice, the lecherous old bird, the Leonardo-da-Vinci-like artist, the overly sentimental crowds. Nor have I received such a strong dosage of irony through a movie in a very long time. The last scene, while not entirely unpredictable still carries the irony along.
Rosalia, the wife of Ferdinando is a sweet, immature and sometimes stupid character who caves for love from her husband based on the books she reads. To play such an ad nauseam annoying character is a very difficult task, and Daniela Rocca made it look effortless. According to IMDB, Rocca had been judged insane and was committed to an institution for the rest of her life about three years after the release of this movie.
Ferdinando plans the murder around Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, a movie that is said to have catalogued the deadly sins and enraged the Roman Catholic Church. While the town throngs to the theater to watch La Dolce Vita giving him freedom to carry out his plan, it also becomes the point where each piece of his plan begins to fall apart. Marcello Mastroianni, a most handsome man, played the protagonist in both the movies. I watched his 8½ and Giornata particolare, Una and these three roles are very unlike each other. While I couldn’t understand 8½ much and Giornata particolare, Una depended on the strengths of both Mastroianni and Sophia Loren equally, Divorzio all’italiana throws the spotlight on his acting prowess. With such a detached and funny narration, I wonder about its reruns in the radio. The way Ferdinando twitches his mouth occasionally is most quirky. Mastroianni’s movements set pace to each and every scene whether it is sprinting across the house into his room to hear the taped conversations, rushing home from the theater that fateful night of the plan with a fake headache, or sulking in his bedroom as a depressed and humiliated husband.
Divorzio all’italiana is a classic satire on the then Italian law against divorce. It took ten more years for the Italian divorce referendum to be passed, the strength of which was to be re-tested only three years later.
PIFF 2009 Day 1, Movie 1.
Image Source: IMDB
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