Silvio Soldini's Un'Anima Divisa in Due: Some Things Are More Important Than Happiness
2003; Wayne State University Press; Volume: 44; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1559-7989
Autores Tópico(s)Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies
ResumoSilvio Soldini's Un'Anima Divisa in Due: Some Things Are More Important Than Happiness (A Soul Divided in Two. Silvio Soldini, Italy/Switzerland, 1993)1 Travelers as well are experiencing a loss of identity: since nomadism is no longer accepted, since by living at the margins of society they only have contact with ghettoised fringes, since they have television in their caravans... Ultimately they too, though they obstinately want to be different, can no longer be as different as before. . . . There is no written Romani language, there are no books and the tradition is being lost. Among them as well the family is in crisis, the tribe is in crisis; the problem of the loss of identity is something very topical for them as well. Silvio Soldini It is estimated that between 85,000 and 120,000 Romanies live in Italy today. They are widely viewed by Italians more as a nomadic population than as an ethnic group, and are perceived as having an extravagant lifestyle that is difficult to reconcile with local habits and values. Such widespread rejection, due to a mix of ignorance and racial intolerance, is recorded clearly by Silvio Soldini's Un'anima divisa in due (Italy/Switzerland, 1993). A rare example of a film interested in die Romany and their interaction with Italians, Un'anima divisa in due is the work of one of Italy's most sensitive and accomplished new filmmakers, the author of four fulllength features to date, including the recent and highly acclaimed Pane e tulipani/Bread and Tulips (Italy, 2000), as well as of several shorts and documentaries, one of which, Rom Tour (Italy, 1999), is based on writer Antonio Tabucchi's denunciation of living conditions in the Romani camps at the periphery of Florence. The idea for Un'anima divisa in due stems instead from Soldini's initial intention of making a film on immigration, and from a screenplay by Umberto Marino on the friendship between an Italian child and a Romani child-but the screenplay as finally written by Soldini and Roberto Tiraboschi developed in a different direction. Whereas in Rom Tour it is the Romany who speak out, in Un'anima divisa in due Soldini observes from his own perspective-respectful and attentive-the behaviour of a Romani protagonist. Un'anima divisa in due was produced by Monogatari (a company founded in 1984 by Soldini and his close collaborators), in conjunction with other enterprises (Aran srl, Pic Film and Mod Films) and was first shown at Venice Film Festival in 1993, where Fabrizio Bentivoglio won the Coppa Volpi prize for Best Actor. The film enjoyed full theatrical distribution in Italy and, following the success of Soldini's previous film, L'aria serena dell'Ovest/ The Peaceful Air of the West (Italy, 1990), it was well received both by the public and by critics. Un 'anima divisa in due is not simply a love story, but also a journey through the various difficulties of integration, those typical of our postmodern era-characterised as it is by accelerated changes, by a widespread experience of rootlessness and by the loss of familial and national traditions-and those typically encountered by distinctive nomadic people. The two protagonists are an Italian man, Pietro (played by well known actor Fabrizio Bentivoglio, who was then at the beginning of his career), and Pabe, a Romani woman played by Maria Bako, a student found by the filmmakers near Budapest, the daughter of a Rorriani father and a Hungarian mother. Pietro and Pabe belong to two mutually rejecting universes-their breaking down of barriers is facilitated by Pietro's fragile psychological condition, in turn caused by his distress: he dislikes his job as a security man in an elegant department store in the centre of Milan, is separated from his wife Miriam, who hardly speaks to him, and can see his son only at weekends. Pietro is attracted to Pabe because she is different, because she is extraneous to the society that he resents more and more. …
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