01/12/2007

It’s definitely not easy to be Carla Bruni’s sister. Imagine a teenager who has to deal with all the doubts and insecurities so typical of that age while one of the hottest top models ever, who incidentally happens to be your little sister, is hanging around the house. How do you explain to that teenager that those are only fictional beauties for magazine covers, and that real women are just like you, with an awkward body, a long face and a funny stare? Who knows, maybe that’s why she started to act: she wanted to exorcize that absolutely unequal confrontation.

The fact that the film which began her career was called Les gens normaux n'ont rien d'exceptionnel (Normal People Are Nothing Exceptional, 1993) is part of the irony that distinguishes her. But even if she doesn’t have the charming allure or the slender legs of her sister, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi has many qualities that are very special. Born in Turin, the daughter of a rich industrial man, she was nine when her family, fearing pursuit by the Red Brigades, moved to France. Then, in the middle of the 70s, her dad did what he had always wanted to do: he sold the factory his grandfather Virginio had founded (CEAT, the second biggest Italian tyre factory) and became a full-time music composer. This suspension between an upper class and a bohemian attitude following its artistic impulsions is part of Valeria’s poetic world.

After her studies she started acting at the ‘École des Amandiers’ in Nanterre, alongside Pierre Romans and Patrice Chéreau. Although her first recognition was in France, not long after she became famous in Italy as well thanks to La seconda volta, by Mimmo Calopresti, in which she starred as an ex-brigade fighter. The cross-references between her private life and her films are evidently important for the actress, as both of her experiences as a director prove. Il est plus facile pour un chameau... tells the story of Federica, the daughter of a Torinese industrial man who has moved to France because he’s afraid of kidnapping. Federica struggles between an ex-husband still flirting with her, a new lover from a poor background, a problematic family, a strong feeling of guilt for being extremely rich, and her job (if we can call it that) - as a screenwriter. The film, successfully screened four years ago at the Torino Festival, won the prize of best breakthrough director at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Even though Valeria’s new movie, Actrices [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Actresses), is very personal, it is hard to say how autobiographical it is. Certainly it was born from strong personal impulses. Marcelline is a famous and admired stage actress, but also a lonely woman: she still hasn’t found love. Tormented by her mother and aunt (old gossip women from Piedmont’s upper class) who push her to find somebody, Marcelline sees a gynaecologist who announces that she has to hurry up if she wants a child. Her crisis is made worse by the new character she’s playing: Natalia Petrovna, a strong and happy woman who falls in love (only on stage?) with the young tutor played by Louis Garrel. Marcelline, like Federica, is an oversensitive, insecure woman, selfish and capricious; an eternal child who is incapable of dealing with real life, suspended as she is between a very important family and her career as an artist. If some accuse Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s films of being too autobiographical, almost auto-referential, what stands out is actually the irony, the courage and the awareness with which Valeria relates her own neuroses, without demanding too much sympathy from the audience, yet allowing them to connect with her emotions.

First presented in Cannes and now in Turin, Actrices confirms once more, if needed, her talent as an actress, but more importantly adds nuances to her original, personal and very feminine view as a director. If she carries on this way, by her third film the Italians and the French will be arguing fiercely about Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s true homeland.