30/08/2008

The first Italian film to screen in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Ferzan Ozpetek’s A Perfect Day [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – adapted from Melania Mazzucco’s eponymous novel – is pure tragedy. An intense love story with a thriller-like ending, A Perfect Day stars Isabella Ferrari and Valerio Mastandrea as a married couple who are separated but still tragically attracted to one another. The cast also includes Monica Guerritore, Nicole Grimaudo, Valerio Binasco, Stefania Sandrelli and Angela Finocchiaro.

For the first time in his career, the director of The Ignorant Fairies and Facing Window [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ferzan Ozpetek
film profile] has used a story penned by someone else (the screenplay was co-written by Sandro Petraglia, who wrote The Best of Youth [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Crime Novel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michele Placido
film profile] and The Girl by the Lake [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]).

Ozpetek explained in a press conference: "When my producer Domenico Procacci suggested it to me, I didn’t think I’d like it; I prefer to use my own screenplays. Instead, I was impressed and I agreed to make the film, only realising afterwards that at home I had two copies of the book, which I’d bought and never read. The choice of actors then led us to participate on several occasions in the writing of the screenplay".

Violence – both psychological and physical – is at the centre of the film. The director commented: "I’ve toned down the violence of the novel; on screen certain things become unbearable to watch. Violence is an integral part of the characters, because it’s an integral part of human beings. We went through certain scenes many times with the actors, and for the most violent scene, in the cane thicket, Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers came to mind".

The beauty of the images softens the dramatic force of the story: Ozpetek captures on film the grey hues of central Rome, as well as the more colourful suburbs, thus juxtaposing distant social classes. But the camera lingers above all on the faces of the two protagonists, trying to grasp the reasons for such a destructive love.

Produced by Fandango, the film will be released domestically by 01 Distribution on Friday, September 5. Meanwhile, the MoMa in New York is dedicating a retrospective to Ozpetek, which opens on December 4.

Producer Procacci commented: "I don’t know if this film will perform well internationally. There are buyers here in Venice but it’s difficult to predict. Before Gomorrah [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Domenico Procacci
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile], my best-selling film was Respiro: Grazia’s Island [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. But for some time, Italian directors have been starting to make a name for themselves abroad".

(Translated from Italian)