Such a
pleasure to watch the intelligent, inquisitive, yet restless, Marta,
as her gaze takes in the sights, the sounds, the smells, of her new
city, her new reality, and attempts not only to comprehend it, but
also, more importantly, to carve her own space within it, to sculpt
her own identity by doing so.
Marta
(Yle Vianello, such a beautiful name), a 13 year old who has grown up
in Switzerland, has recently moved to deeply Catholic and
conservative Southern Italy (the film was shot in Reggio di Calabria)
with her mother and older sister, Rosa. Alice Rohrwacher, director
and writer, in this stunning debut feature film, casts a non
judgemental eye, and her lens, not only on a young girl's desire to
mould herself within this new reality, within this new community, she
feels like an outsider, and is constantly reminder of it by Santa,
the priest's assistant, who runs the catechism classes she has to
assist in order to undergo the Catholic ceremony of the confirmation;
but also on her curiosity on her own growing body, as we see her
contemplating in a mirror her burgeoning breasts, then for her to
appropriate, and wear, her older sister's bra.
The
moment where she finds out that she had had her first period, in a
restaurant up the mountains having a snack with the priest, Don Mario
(Salvatore Cantalupo), is set by Alice Rohrwacher as a matter-of-fact
attitude by Marta, part of her process of growing up, of
understanding of her reality, of her being. Her subsequent meeting
with the old priest in a disused church located in a deserted village
up the Calabrian mountains, paradoxically, by unsettling the view of
Catholic doctrine as is being imparted on her, leads her to the
independent path she is to follow to carve her identity.
The
scene where she asks the meaning of the ritual words she has to
repeat during the Confirmation ceremony in the catechism class, just
to be sharply rebutted by Santa, resonated deeply in me, as it
reminded of a experience I had some 40 years ago, in a completely
different context, I had when I asked my Mathematics teacher ( I
still remember his name) about the meaning of an equation. His
rebuttal led me to completely abandon Maths at school, in spite of
having been quite good at it. Somewhat, watching this scene, I
understood Marta starting to recoil from her Catholicism, or, rather,
from this deeply conservative vision of it that her community has,
and tries to make her to sign to. Alice Rohrwacher's camera
constantly reminds us of this traditional attitude, as when Marta
watches from a rooftop a group of old women singing a religious song
in a courtyard, or the initial scene, shot in the night, contrasting
a pilgrimage against the secular background of passing trains, and
the greyness of that no-man land found in our cities between railway
lines, motorways, as dawn breaks-in.
The
sad episode of the kittens does not only contributes to her
increasing independence of her own self, but also exposes the
unwitting double standards, perhaps even hypocrisy, of the
Catholicism of the local community, when Marta, and her fellow
classmates, enjoy themselves with the kittens they found in the store
room of the church, just to be sharply rebutted, yet again, by a
disgusted Santa, who gets the janitor to “take care” of the
kittens. Marta, in despair, follows him, and watches as he beats the
plastic bag where the tiny creatures are on the road, before throwing
it into the river. After her attempts to save them fails, Marta is
found wandering on the autostrada by Don Mario, the priest, who takes
her to a political meeting. to which she wanders in, when she was not
suppose to do, before climbing the mountains in search of a crucifix
in that abandoned church, a crucifix he needs to make the
Confirmation ceremony special, in an attempt to arrest the continuous
decline of his church, perhaps giving him enough kudos to get a
transfer by the bishop to a bigger parish. As Don Mario tells Marta,
being a priest is also a job, what you do can make, or break, your
career path.
The
Italy of Corpo Celeste is not that of postcards, or the tourist
office advertising boards, what Alice Rohrwacher constantly shows us
is a ravaged landscape which has been altered, used, abused, and even
abandoned, as Marta's and Don Mario's personal pilgrimage to that
abandoned village in the mountains shows, and leading to epiphany for
both of them.
I have
read elsewhere users comments, where the tone is: “Who cares about
the state of the Catholic Church?” Perhaps it may be so,
particularly for British, or American audiences. However, I feel that
Alice Rohrwacher may have not made Corpo Celeste for those audiences,
in spite of having been distributed both in Britain and in the Sates.
Hollywood studio cinema, to which we are getting more and more used
due to their relentless marketing campaigns, is, mostly, designed as
commercial products to satisfy the craving for entertainment of
global audiences. Corpo Celeste belongs to another kind of cinema, a
cinema that looks into the dynamic of small communities, of small
lives, into their humanity.
Corpo
Celeste is not only about the tribulations of a girl growing up, or
about the state of the Catholic Church as seen in the context of a
small community, but, fundamentally, casts an eye on a sense of
identity in a world which is constantly evolving.
Corpo
Celeste is released by Artificial Eye in the UK on DVD & Blu-ray on 10
September 2012.
Set
deep in the south of Italy, Corpo
Celeste is the story of
13 year old Marta who is struggling to resettle after ten years
growing up in Switzerland. Bright-eyed and restless, she observes the
sights, sounds and smells of the city but feels very much an
outsider.
Marta
is about to undergo the rite of confirmation. In the convention of
the Catholic Church she takes catechism but confronts the morality of
the local Catholic community. A series of subtle moments trace her
journey as she connects and conflicts with her mother, sister and the
Sunday school teacher Santa. From experiencing her period to making a
bold decision to cut her hair, Marta begins to shape her own life for
the first time since moving back to Italy.
Corpo
Celeste heralds the
arrival of a young and distinctive voice. Alice Rohrwacher’s
writing and directing debut is a sensitive unveiling of the moral and
religious layers that can smother adolescence.
EXTRA
FEATURES:
Interview
with the director Alice Rohrwacher
