Customer Reviews

Love and Anarchy [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have exchanged this DVD twice and find that the quality of the transfer is unacceptable. Fox Lorber simply did a poor job of transferring this film to DVD. I recommend that you NOT purchase this DVD until they do a better job of transferring the movie. The movie deserves better.

One of the early Wertmuller films, allready demonstrating all the hallmarks of her style. A brave film, uncompromising in its grotesquerie, and driving home its bleak message as only Wertmuller can. Not as compelling as the later masterpieces, or demonstrating as much of the trademark humour, but still putting most to shame.
The film deserves a full five stars, but Fox Lorber's dvd deserves zero - a very poorly done transfer made from a very poor source. It looks like the sort of thing you could put together at home from an old vhs copy. This powerful film needs a proper dvd transfer.

This film, set in a brothel during WWII in fascist Italy, hammers home Wertmuller's common theme that men, ruled by their passions as well as society's views of how men must act (see her film "All Screwed Up" for an even more unambiguous statement of this philosphy), cannot adapt well to change and are often the reasons for their own downfalls. Gianini plays a country peasant who travels to the city to assassinate Mussolini; seemingly devoid of poilitical convictions, the only clue we get to reason behind his mission is his statement, "Sometimes a Man must stand up and say enough!". And it is this statement that is his ultimate downfall.

By contrast, the women in the brothel show themselves to me quite strong, yet capable of adapting to the changes the political situation brings; they can get along with the fascists (allowing them to sample their wares), yet can also strike back or make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their aims (one of the major sacrifices demonstrated is the major character's willingnenss to allow her beloeved to think she betrayed him (and wind up hating her) to save his life. Even the men that get along with the fascists assume the more submissive, traditionally female roles. The real tragedy occurs because Gianini's character refuses to abandon his macho character traits and foolishly goes forward with a suicide mission which is neither well thought out or executed.

Some of Wertmuller's ideas and themes may be a bit dated, remember this was released nearly thirty years ago; but the film provides an entertaining look at a woman's view of a male dominated society in the early days of the womens' liberation movement. The style, pacing, and direction, to sya nothing of the acting talents of Gianini and Melato, contribute to an important film that is well worth viewing.

{I love the reviews posted after the "professional critics" have had their say. They are invariably more forthright and honest, avoiding all the usual hot air that movie reviewers (Leonard Maltin, take note) engage in when their memory of a particular movie comes up fuzzy.] Wertmuller's Love and Anarchy seems to foreshadow her one other film set in Mussolini's Italy (forgetting Blood Feud completely - despite Loren and Mastroianni [and Giannini] in their post-prime). I am referring to, of course, Seven Beauties. But Love & Anarchy features a hero who, while foolish and spotty-faced, is committed to a actual "cause" - i.e., the anarchist-sanctioned assassination of Mussolini. His final days are reckless and muddled, as he falls in love with his cousin in a Roman brothel (too many critics took this as symbolism). Mariangela Melato is yet another hooker with a heart of gold-plate, but she makes her character completely genuine. Giannini plays the hero, whose pathetic quest is made all the more pathetic by his distracting red hair and acne. Wertmuller portrays his last days as an ultimate waste. His mission fails (of course) and he is tortured and killed by Mussolini's thugs. And yet somehow his exploit, despite Wertmuller's rather burlesque view of it, comes off as heroic - else why make a film about such as schlemiel? Wertmuller satirizes the Left as well as the Right, leaving us to believe that her sympathies are with the very anarchists she satirizes in Love & Anarchy. And I have never seen an Italian film with this much "brio" since Pietro Germi.

A film about love, and, er, anarchy. Funny, horrifying, moving, passionate, committed, acid, cynical...Magnificently acted, with a beautiful music score. A love story, a peasant and a whore. The tyranny of fascism and the desperation of the poor. At once a romance, a comedy and a study of political injustice. This is a mix found in many of Wertmuller's films. The result is confusion, an evocation of feeling that insidiously questions itself as you watch.

And it's accurate. Whores did fall in love in the Italy of the 1930s, and soldiers did beat dissidents to death, and human beings haven't changed at all in the meantime. As a species we have a horrifying, lovable capacity to love and be cruel at the same time. Lina Wertmuller has caught this in her film with devastating results. La Tripolena believes that love is more important than justice or freedom. And if we are capable of loving while we carry out our fight for freedom and justice we are enlightened indeed. But emotions are powerful; feeling, we often lose our sense of perspective. The results are unforgettably shown in this film.

Directed by Lina Wertmüller in 1973, "Love & Anarchy" is an indisputable classic. Universally identifiable and immediately entertaining, Wertmüller carries her audience into the mind and times of Turin, a peasant in 1930s Italy. When one of his close friends and idols is killed by fascists, Turin becomes obsessed with anarchist ideals he hardly understands, and sets off to exact an awful vendetta--the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The plan gets off-track when Turin falls in love with Tripolina, a prostitute in the bordello where he lives in the days leading up to the assassination attempt. We soon learn that Tripolina returns his love, and the tragic stage is set. Knowing full well that the assassination attempt, successful or not, will surely mean his death, Turin is suddenly gripped by fear. When all he had at stake was a quiet life on the farm, he was glad to give it up for a chance at changing the quality of life for his peasant countrymen. But now, having tasted the happiness love can afford, can Turin really carry through with this suicidal act? Can he truly give up his life for a belief he once thought was worth dying?

"Love & Anarchy" is a brilliant study of turmoil and human testing in the face of insurmountable odds. It begs the question--is it better to bow and live, or stand up and die? How much can a people be crushed before someone makes a sacrifice for the betterment of society? Whose responsibility is it? And on a grander scale, is it better to live happily, contented by love or family, and leave the world untouched, or to attempt real change by sacrificing everything in exchange for it? "Love & Anarchy" poses all these questions, but it offers no easy answers.

Wertmüller's favorite actor, Giancarlo Giannini, plays the peasant boy, Turin, with beautiful humility. He wordlessly portrays infinite subtleties of emotion with body language and facial expression alone. Giannini has the face of a silent movie actor, and in fact was touted as a new Chaplin in the 1970s. Playing opposite him as the prostitute Salome is Mariangela Melato, who viewers may recognize from Wertmüller's "Swept Away." She, too, delivers a wonderful performance. The style and pacing of the film are excellent. Cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno captures Rome in a gorgeous, yet unobtrusive manner.

In "Love & Anarchy," Wertmüller doesn't pull any punches. As par usual, she lets the politics of her movie decide the fate of its characters, and tragedy ensues. One must admire her for making an extraordinarily brave and beautiful film. She exhibits how powerful and effective a tragic story can truly be in exploring the more complex questions of life.

This is a gorgeous film. Sex, Love, and Politics all blended together into one great movie. Though I'll admit it's not for everybody. You really have to love movies to love this film.

Powerful and Brutal!!! There is no place for love in a fascist regime. Love exists on the fringes of society ~ the countryside or the microcosm of a brothel. Oppression leads to retaliation, but even the final act of murder is rendered meaningless. A damning and emotional tragicomedy.

I have. I often wonder about it though at my age I've resigned myself to the probability that I will never know in any significant way. I can empathize, but that knowledge is unavailable to me. I know that many men have, at one time or another, worn women's clothes and pretended to be women; sometimes seriously, sometimes not. And, I remember that when I was young, dumb and in the service I saw drag shows at he local USO; that is, frequently there were organized entertainments featuring other servicemen dressed up as women and "camping." I didn't know what that meant or why it was supposed to be entertaining because I didn't know whether or not it had anything to do with male homosexuality, with female sexuality, or what precisely it had to do with. I was still a virgin and far from home. But later, after I had my sexual indoctrination I came to realize that often when men dress up as women they're behaving like whores, which is the way many men experience femenine sexuality; that is, as by becoming the embodiment thorugh projection of their own narcissistic fantasies.. Women are whores, first, and mothers only eventually.

This movie of Lina Wertmuller's, adapted from a novel by a woman, is the story of what happens when a naif country boy leaves his town and goes to the capital. He's seen an old fiend murdered by a band of uniformed Facist thugs, doesn't understand it, but is angeed by it and decides to assassinate Mussolini, the Dictator and head of the Fascist Party. Except for a distant relative, he knows nobody in Rome, but through confusion and misrepresentation, he makes contact with this "cousin" played by Mariangela Melato who works as the celebrity prostitute in a good brothel. She accepts him into the brothel, introduces him to her fellow whores and her madame as a cousin, and allows him to stay with her. She is delighted with his mission and wants to help and encourge him. She likes him. He adds to her platinum blonde whore-house celebrity -- she is known as the house's Jean Harlow -- and has the best room with mirrors cleverly placed at angles around her bed in order that while posiing for her customers, she can show her body to advantage. Her impersonation is massively successful.

All the whores have faux or whore personalities they use to dramatize themselves before their clientele when they parade before them, evenings. One of the young whores is of the Clara Bow/Sally Bowles dizzy, fizzy flapper type and our hero Giancarlo Giannini shows some interest in her. As it happens, the Mariangela charactr's primary client is a medium-high Fascist, and one day he decides to take her and her cousin, and the cousin's flapper so-called girlfriend on an outing. They take a trip on a Moto-Guzzi motorcycle and sidecar to a farm where they are served by accommodating peasants, who allow them to fornicate at leisure in the house in the bedrooms they temporarily abandon for the purpose. This is our first close look at Fascism, and it is from the whore's point of view. Our faux Harlow hates her patron, but obeys him because she wants his business. She knows, as do all the whores, that one does not either refuse or disobey a Fascist. The party dominates all of IIaly. The peasant farmers know it and as the movie progresses, we see that everybody knows and accepts it; everybody but a minority of dissenters the Fascists call "Anarchists." What are Anarchists? Nobody seems to know, but everybody agrees they are dangerous free-thinkers.

Life in this brothel is very, very interesting; very colorful, both lewd, degrading and funny. Had LOVE AND ANARCHY been filmed by a man, I'm sure it would have been different and in certain profound ways, inauthentic, but because it was filmed by one of the 20th century's best film directors, and a woman, one is bound to take it seriously despite its vivid streaks of unexpected humor. Wertmuller knows her subject, women, men and fascism, and her country, Italy. She lived through if not all, then most of that country's 20th century hisory. The plot and characters in all their variety are vehicles of her thought. This is what she tells us; women are socially confined; imprisoned, if you like. These woman are confined not only to a profession but to a sub-caste. They are not voluntary servants because they have no choice. They must please men by participating in their sexual fantasies in order to eat. They assume phoney identities to heighten the sexual curiosity of their masters, but abandon them utterly when they are alone or among themselves. They are slaves. The dramas they create about themselves depend on their obedience skills for full effect.

Gypsy Rose Lee sang a song in the film BELLE OF THE YUCON that goes..."Every girl is different, but men are all the same." To these women all the men -- except for the country cousin -- are the same, in that they are in control. Eventually, you see, even the counry boy has become involved with the Flapper, and she does what he wants her to do. He will not do what she wants, which is to abandon his crazy idea of killing Mussolini. That would mean destroying any hope she may have of their life together. But what can she do? Nothing. None of the women can do anything because not only are their motives suspect, they do not have freedom of movement; they are in every significant respect, slaves. And, as the movie story demonstrates, their masters are indeed Fascists. They punish and kill at will, whomsoever they please. Not only is there no mercy, there is no justice. There may be humor, wine, food -- this is Italy, remembr -- there may even be Josephine Baker's voice on the phonograph singing a popular pooh-pooh-a-doo! French ditty, but there is no justice, and consequently, no peace.

Sometimes, if you want to really understand women you have to look at their men. Conversely, if you want to undesand men, you have to study their women. Is this how they see us? We men? As Fascists? Or at least potential Fascists? Certainly some do. A filthy business. Who said, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master?"

It is reasonable to assume that what Wertmuller is telling us is that women are slaves and men are Fascists, and the nature of Fascism itself, is best demonstrated by this simple but powerful sexual allegory. It is reasonable to think she had a point in 1973 when this film was released, and just as reasonable 35 years later to believe the pertinence of the film is heightened by the increased pressure exerted by Christofascists now, in this country, to eliminate all traces of femenine freedom in American culture: to repeal the Reproductive Rights of women; to repeal all the Affirmative Action efforts that have promoted female education and encouraged women to take promient places in business and politics; to repeal the laws that have liberalized marriage and made divorce relatively easy of access to women. American fascists are seeking to return women to the status of slaves. I suppose our Fundamentalist Christofascists would have women in red white and blue burkhas, if they could. Maybe it is only a queston of obedience, or perhaps only a questoin of time until we out-Taliban the Taliban.

Watch this movie at least once! And preferably with someone of the opposite sex.

This is a magnificent movie . What a pity Fox Lorber has done such an extremely incompetent transfer to DVD . This film , most certainly deserves better .