2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not the Best of Lina's Ouerve, But It Has its Moments, May 3, 2008
This review is from: Ferdinando and Carolina (DVD)
I rarely review films, generally they're over-reviewed. However, Wertmuller is not a minor director, and any film of hers should invite more interest. In this film, Sexual Politics continues as a bedrock theme of the director. Apparently she decided, so why not go all the way and tell a story about the struggles in royal bedrooms, and tell this historic story of silly Italian King Ferdinando of Naples who has his authority and power usurped by his wife?
The results are mixed indeed, with satire and farce blended with a nod to history. Atmosphere is supplied, but rarely does it come across with any real versmiltude; director Wertmuller's insistent focus on the immediacy of human behavior dominates even the most prepossessing sets - and there are certainly a few of those in this film.
The role of the arrogant spoiled young ruler comes off nicely enough - anyone looking for idealism has come to the wrong world in this kingdom. The film makes Marie Therese of Austria into a monstrous horror, destroying her daughters for her own political ends; so evil is she in her real politik that had impossibly spoiled and worthless Ferdinando not been so utterly characterized as human slime by the point in time of his forced marriage we might feel sympathy for him.
Although there are moments of genuine mirth and a full array of brilliantly depicted underlinings, ancillaries and followers, this is overall a very bleak movie, with social life presented as a series of careless escapades atop rarely scene horrible events, which emerge in brutal flashbacks, and are laughed off in Ferdinand's running gag of insisting on threatening everyone who upsets him with having their head cut off. It's always difficult to say just where Wertmuller stands in this depraved and hideous universe, as her invective is so readily engaged in every direction and with every possible character.
A memorable trip to the ruins of Pompeii, several superbly done hunting parties, and many fabulous palace sets, both in Naples and Vienna, bring to the film a certain majesty of place and timelessness. The huge deliberately unfilled royal interiors, along with certain touches - such as a monstrous globe immediately adjacent to the equally monstrous rotund Marie Therese - calls to mind the equally politically saturated work of Rossellini.
Dash and energy raises this film to three stars, but it's breeziness and plein air appeal are not enough to hold together this rather rambling storyline. Too, as the other reviewer mentions, just when things get going and Carolina grabs, literally, the whip hand, the movie abrutly ends. Deliberate or not, it makes for a disappointment.
Viewers should be aware there are innumberable profanitites throughout the film, along with plenty of nudity and sexual situations involving scenes of abuse - it is what it is. There are also murder and torture; this along with what appears 'real' dead animals used during the hunting scenes.
One last note: You should certainly not take the cover of this DVD as anything but totally misleading - there's nothing sentimental about this feature! This is not an 'engaging spoof of the 18th century'. This is brutal vicious satire ripping loose on a group of people who deserve it.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better than 3 stars, maybe not really 4, November 10, 2006
This review is from: Ferdinando and Carolina (DVD)
I purchased this DVD because I found it for a bargain and I had really loved Ciao, Professore!, which is perhaps Wertmuller's best known film. I should also note that I have more than a passing interest in Italy and my review may be more favorable because of that than it otherwise would have been.
There are a couple of things you just have to get over if you're going to enjoy this one. First, the sound. Something about the voices sounds super big and exaggerated, almost as though the voices were all dubbed (I'm referring to the Italian track). Visually, this does not appear to be the case. But if you think of the priest in Cinema Paradiso and how his voice was always doing a tremolo and everything he said was highly inflected, then amplify that effect several times and apply it to the majority of the cast, that about describes the sound here. It seems bizarre.
Second, the story line has several false starts. It's set up as a flashback, but Ferdinando, who is doing the remembering, is dying and is having a difficult time following the thread of the plot.
But just when it seems that the meandering scenes will never fall together, the film develops into an intriguing power struggle between Ferdinando and Carolina.
So as much as it was difficult for me to get in to this film, when the story line hit, there was great political intrigue and life-threatening rage and ambition. And it was highly engaging.
And then it ended. Somewhat abruptly. I didn't think the whole story was told.
And yet I have to say I enjoyed it more than a little.
Take it as you will. I'm not rushing out to make all my friends see this one. It wasn't developed enough, and it was certainly too over the top. But for me it was fun. I loved the scenes with the Austrians who have to speak Italian, I loved the treatment of the superstitions the royals nursed, and I loved getting reeled in just when I thought it was too late. For some, it would be a dealbreaker, but I enjoyed enough of it to mark it overall as a pleasant movie.
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