Tuesday, June 7, 2011

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)
La Pivellina (2009)

Genre: Drama
Director: Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel
Starring: Tairo Caroli, Asia Crippa, Patrizia Gerardi, Walter Saabel
Duration: 100 min.
Rating: 6.3

Summary:
Patty, a middle aged circus woman finds Asia, a two year old girl abandoned near the trailer park where she lives.  Attached to the child is a note from her mother that says she will eventually return to pick her up.  Not wanting to leave the youngster on her own, Patty brings Asia back to her trailer...


La Pivellina is an Italian language film co directed by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel.  An Austrian production that premiered in the Directors Fortnight section of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where it received the award for Best European Film, it was also selected as Austria's entry to the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

The first dramatic feature film from this pair of documentary filmmakers, La Pivellina does not stray far from their roots.  Using a cast of non actors, natural improvisational dialog, gritty realistic Dardenne brothers style cinematography, and a lack of any real narrative.  The scenario takes place in Rome, and consists mainly of a series of unconnected scenes of the daily lives of a couple of circus performers and a young boy who live on the margin of society.  The story of the abandoned toddler is itself largely abandoned and no effort is made to pursue any semblance of a plot.

This would work well if the subjects are fascinating characters or take part in gripping events, but this one follows mildly interesting people in rather mundane situations.  The film mostly revolves around their caring for the young girl, Asia.  In fact, the amusing and endearing performance from Asia is the sole reason to watch this film.  I think the directors lucked out with her, to get such consistently genuine scenes from someone so young is quite something and its hard not to fall for her like the rest of the cast does.

But an audience can only wait for so long for something to happen, and while the directors should get some credit for not falling into any cliched mushy emotional traps, they still fail to do anything beyond providing a small window into these unusual lives. 

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)

La Pivellina (2009)

19 comments:

Tim B. said...

And then she turns out to be a vampire that ate her mother! Oh...

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yeah aside from a couple of festival awards it definitely doesn't have a lot of appeal.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

It's almost as if the directors just randomly filmed the little girl and then decided to edit together a film with their footage.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yeah, in your language this was a 0 for violence and 0 for boobies.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

The little girl is endearing, the story not so much

Bonjour Tristesse said...

It does look a lot like Rosetta

Adalmin said...

A lot of slice of life films have this problem I guess. The balance between authenticity and simply boring your audience to death with said authenticity.

Thenitefalls said...

Looks like a very emotional film, I'll check it out when I'm ready >_<

Jesse Cohen said...

It's like a twist on moses whole situation. Only with the circus.

Biff Tanner said...

That's not quiet my speed. but looks good.

Gonzalo Garcia-Castro said...

doesn't sound like my type of movie, but then again I like foreign films.

Beasts in Human Skin said...

Sounds like something I would avoid like the plague.  Nice review, though!

Ben Farnworth said...

Looks cool :D

+follow
benf199105.blogspot.com

Jack L said...

Sounds Ok I suppose, not something I'd go out of my way to see though...

Rorschach Redemption said...

Endearing?  I dunno.  This sounds a tad depressing.

Moviemonstrosityblog said...

nice, looks a little bit like Rosetta

The Reel Foto said...

sounds endearing. :)

d_4 said...

The summary alone sounded interesting enough, but not like some stunning must watch film.


The trailer just confirmed that for me. And then, you did too. Heh.

Richard McDonough said...

As Holden said of a classmate, you, reviewer, are as sensitive as a toilet seat.

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