15/11/2012 - Paolo Franchi’s film tells the story of a man who loves his wife madly, but finds making love to her impossible, with Jean-Marc Barr and Isabella Ferrari

The production debut for Nicoletta Mantovani (Pavarotti’s widow) could not have been more turbulent. A sea of polemics welcomed E la chiamano estate [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the third and final Italian film to be presented in competition in Rome, produced by her for Pavarotti International and directed by Paolo Franchi. The press was not impressed. It will now be up to the public to make up its own mind.

Someone already renamed it the Italian Shame [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. Compulsive sex and sick love are the ingredients of this film with erotic overtones, where nakedness, orgies and genital close-ups abound. Dino (Jean-Marc Barr, soon to appear in Nymphomaniac by Lars Von Trier – remaining in a similar theme bracket) is a tormented, sexually deviant man who loves his wife Anna(Isabella Ferrari) madly, but finds having sex with her impossible. He looks for pleasure elsewhere: sees prostitutes, and goes to swinging clubs. He sleeps with all kinds of women, even unattractive ones. We are given an insight into his nocturnal life through confused, excited videos he shoots on his phone. Then, when he gets home to his loved one, everything becomes lyrical and pure (scenes of the couple are set in a bedroom out of space and time where everything is white and full of light). The two declare their eternal love to each other but hardly touch each other.

The film’s structure, which mixes past, present and future is passable, as is the reiteration of certain scenes and concepts (“reiterating a scene means rereading and creating a story which develops with internal reflection not longitudinal time, that seemed interesting to me,” Franchi explained). But some dialogues are on the verge of unforgivable (“you should never deny anyone a good fuck, not even an ex” is a sentence which will go down in history) and the thoughtful photography, the Bergson-like editing, and the ambition of its director, are not enough to make the film credible. Some recognition should go to the audacity of Nicoletta Mantovani though: "to produce such a film, you need courage, you need to believe in it, and for me, this was the case.” Costing around €1.5 million, the film received part of its funds from MiBAC (€400,000). Release has been set for November 22, and is being distributed by Officine UBU, which will also be distributing Corsicato’s film presented in Rome (read the news story).

(Translated from Italian)