Respiro (2002)

The insights of desperation, depressive mood or lack of love!

A small village of fishermen, who live in Lampedusa, a small Italian island, a young marriage; a woman who simply doesn't accept the boredoma and the reduced existential universe, where nothing happens. she needs to be listened, but the level of her demands are quite above the surroinding affective world who involves her. So she has not many options except the sea with its enormous significance of freedom, an existential metaphor where love is just a part of that crisis.

An unusual movie that possesses its own rhthym, slow but rewarding. The sensual beauty of Valeria Golino, the beauutiful island, baked by the sun lights, hovered by the dark cloud of social conventionalisms and lack of perspectives for a recent future in which tomorrow simply will be a simple varaint respect today.

A brilliant film that unavoidably, reminds us to Antonioni, the great master of silences, existential anguish and desperation. There are exquisite images throughout it.

Great!
This is a masterpiece...
Good performances, beauty and feelings!
The boy that plays in the film is unbelievable, to much sensitive!
I've liked!

This film is a powerful concentration of life in a small area of Italy.
Although subtitled Grazia's island (Grazia is the lead role, magnificently realized by Valeria Golino), "Respiro" could have well been called "Scenes from rural Sicilian life", as the scenography, cinematography and tableaux-like imagery seem as important to the director as her thin narrative line. Respiro's locale is Lampedusa, a tiny island far off the west coast of Sicily. About the same latitude as Malta, this place is about as remote as it gets - Tunisia is closer than Palermo. It can be safe to say that Italian time here has pretty much stood still for decades; this is Italy of de Sica and Mascagni, not Fellini and Prada. The men go out to sea, the children play, women pack fish, old black-clad crones meddle and the languid summer air of total boredom hangs down from the cloudless sky.

Throughout this film you would probably ask yourself, "Is she really as crazy as the family and neighbors think she is or just free spirited?" It's a fairly typical story, the type that a few great (and many, many average) Italian filmmakers have been serving up for the last three generations - life in the sun drenched rural, ritualistic and tribal south and the saga of one village denizen who dares to break the moulds. How long since "Cinema Paradiso?"

What I like most about the movie, besides the appealing scenery, was the interrelations of the characters, the humor, petty gossips, the impromptu emotional outbursts, the displays of maternal and filial affection. The two boys are tremendous: the older Pasquale (Francesco Casisa) is the more mature of the two. The younger Filippo (Filippo Pucillo) has an unregulated diarrhea mouth filled with hilarious and inspired ravings, often without sense. His rant against the busybody women is a treasure, as is his little-brother-as-big-brother protectiveness of his sister from the policeman-friend. The boy embodies an epic Italianate inflammability far beyond his years. While viewing this I thought the son's affection was overtly and uncomfortably oedipal at times. They do spend a lot of time and energy comforting their mom plus defending her against verbal attacks in the village.

After seeing this film, I have realized that the rural lives by the sea in many countries are similar, the differences are in the languages, but the feelings are same. I enjoyed this film so much I might see it a couple of times.