Seven Beauties (1975)

Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze)
Directed by Lina Wertmuller
Written by Lina Wertmuller
1975/Italy
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Narrator: … The ones who have never had a fatal accident. Oh yeah. The ones who have had one. The ones who, at a certain point in their lives, create a secret weapon, Christ. Oh yeah. The ones who are always standing at the bar. The ones who are always in Switzerland. The ones who started early, haven’t arrived, and don’t know they’re not going to. Oh yeah. The ones who lose wars by the skin of their teeth. Oh yeah. The ones who say ‘Everything is wrong here.’ The ones who say ‘Now let’s all have a good laugh.’ Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Lina Wertmuller reaches greatness with this unique approach to the lot of Italians and Italy during the Second World War.

The film begins with a black and white pastiche of destruction and death during WWII set to R&B music and accompanied by a kind of “beat” poetry.  We then move to Naples.

Pasqualino Frafuso (Giancarlo Giannini) is the only man in a family consisting of his mother and seven ugly sisters.  He is a ladies man with no apparent means of support who is obsessed with the honor of his sisters, the eldest of which is in love with a pimp and dancing in a sexy music hall show.  She claims he has promised to marry her.  Instead she ends up working in a brothel and Pasqualino kills her lover.  He doesn’t do this in a smart way and the best his lawyer can do is a sentence to ten years in a mental hospital in lieu of decades in prison.

The beginning of the film has a Felliniesque comic tone but it turns progressively dark from here.  Pasqualino’s internment in the hospital becomes a living hell.  Finally a doctor tells him that she will declare him sane so he can join the Italian army.  He leaps at the chance.

But Pasqualino’s luck does not improve.  Combat is also hellish and he deserts with a comrade only to be apprehended by the Nazis and put in a POW camp.  The camp is run by a grotesque female Commandant (Shirley Stoler – The Honeymoon Killers (1969)).  Several men are selected for death by firing squad every day.  In the depths of despair and nearing death by starvation. Pasqualino decides that the only way to stay alive is to make love to the Commandant.  It’s not going to be that easy.  With Fernando Rey in a small but memorable role as a fellow POW.

You will never see a World War II movie quite like this one.  Giancarlo Giannini is brilliant both as a comedian and a tragedian and has ample opportunity to show both talents in this film. Wertmuller fills the screen with color and chaos until everything turns dark black. It has tons of heart while being politically savage. It seems to encompass the whole wartime experience in Italy through the fate of one flawed man and asks the big questions about honor and survival. How the editors of the 1001 Movies book passed this movie by is beyond me. Very highly recommended.

Seven Beauties was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Foreign Language Film, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.  Wertmuller’s nomination was the first for a female director and one of only five such nominations to  date.

Opening montage

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