Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze)

Released 1976
Stars Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Piero Di Iorio
Directed by Lina Wertmüller
Reviewed January 27, 2002

"Seven Beauties" is a tale of two movies. Half of it is a drama that's told in the present time, and the other half is a supposed comedy that's shown through flashbacks. The two halves are woven together into a frustrating whole. It's frustrating because I loved everything about the drama, but I despised nearly everything about the flashbacks. The movie is about a soldier, Pasqualino Frafuso, who deserts the Italian army and is captured by German soldiers who place him in a concentration camp. Then through flashbacks, we see Pasqualino's path to becoming a soldier.

Everything about this film's drama is poignant and disturbing as director Lina Wertmüller struggles with mighty issues of humanity. How far is a person willing to go to survive, and at what point does a person choose to go against his principles in order to save his own life? When you're talking about self-preservation, I don't think there are any right and wrong answers. For example, if you're a parent, under what circumstance would you willingly sacrifice your child's life to save your own? The only possible scenario I could think of for myself would be if I were told to either kill my child or both my child and I would be killed. In that situation, it's logical to choose life for yourself instead of death for both of you, but I don't think I could make that choice. If I did, how could I go on living with the guilt? I think it would be better to just perish as a family. It's illogical, but it's a sacrifice I couldn't make for my own life. Not everyone would make the same choice, however, and we watch Pasqualino make the other choice when he's put in that situation with his friend, Francesco. I loved how the film understands there are no right and wrong answers in situations like this. All options are both right and wrong, but an option must be chosen.

There's a brilliant scene near the beginning of the film that has Pasqualino and his fellow deserter, Francesco, trudging through the German forest trying to avoid capture. Eventually they come to a spot where sporadic machinegun fire is heard in the distance. They continue trudging through the forest along the Rheine until they stop and see lines of people undressing to their white undergarments. I was reminded of the great river scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou? where people are dressed in white and singing on their way through the forest to be baptized in the river. It was so peaceful and beautiful until I realized this was where the machinegun fire was coming from. They weren't Christians heading for a baptism--they were Jews being killed by German soldiers who were dumping them into a mass grave. It was a very disturbing scene, but it presented the film's first moral dilemma. Francesco felt they were accomplices for running away and not trying to stop it, while Pasqualino felt they were being pragmatic in saving their own lives. They were both right, and it was the first situation that involved the moral ambiguity of war.

Through the flashbacks we see Pasqualino as a despicable man (I won't talk about how he rapes a bound and gagged female mental patient). He lives at the expense of his mother and seven hideous sisters who work like dogs to allow him to run around, preening like a peacock while defending his family's "good name" and "honor." When I saw his family's situation I had to wonder why he felt the need to worry about his family's reputation at all. They lived in a small section of a single-room building that seemed to double as a commercial laundry, and you'd have to look long and hard to find an uglier family. In other words, they had no station, land, money or beauty, so what's to defend? This seems to be a common theme in European families, who confuse generations of history with nobility. When Pasqualino discovers his eldest sister has (voluntarily) turned to prostitution, he feels the need to defend his family's honor. So he murders her pimp in cold blood. If Pasqualino had honestly viewed his family's situation, he may have been thrilled to have his vacuous, hippo of a sister become a prostitute. She was certainly thrilled by it. I find it hard to believe she could make any money, but that's a different story. After he's arrested, Pasqualino confesses to the crime because he wants to be honorable. He then refuses to plead insanity until he learns he'll receive the death penalty. Chronologically this is the first time we see Pasqualino violate his principles to save his life, and that later becomes a pattern.

This isn't a morality play, but the entire movie revolves around morality. I enjoyed the storyline of the sadistic commandant, who is subtly challenged by Pasqualino to stop accepting Hitler's morals as her own. Her reaction to that challenge was very interesting and played out subtly in Shirley Stoler's face and her character's actions. Instead of raising herself, she chooses to drag Pasqualino down with her. She feels some small satisfaction in watching Pasqualino lower himself to her level, as she feels justified in her own choices. The difference, of course, is we assume she wasn't force into the position as he was, but maybe she was to some degree. She doesn't seem to enjoy her role, but she accepts it. I liked the ambiguity in this subplot.

In the end we see Pasqualino return to his family a changed man. In the beginning he's willing to kill to save his family's honor, but at the end he's willing to accept his sister's choice to be a prostitute. More significantly, he doesn't even bat an eye when he learns his love has become a prostitute as well, and he asks her to marry him. More than anyone, Pasqualino's finally able to understand how people are sometimes forced to make choices to survive. Compared to the choices he's had to make, prostitution is trivial.

I haven't talked much about the so-called comedy in this film, which I found incredibly irritating. I couldn't find a shred of humor in any of the flashbacks, and I couldn't stand Giancarlo Giannini's hamminess or his grating voice, which reminded me of Chris Tucker. His comedic acting wasn't as bad as Chris Tucker since that's impossible, but it drove my wife to go to bed before the half-way point. I'm glad I stuck with it, though, because the drama is outstanding. Despite its horrible attempts at broad comedy, I think Seven Beauties is brilliant in the way it raises its moral questions, and then it's intelligent enough to not give easy answers. If I've learned anything in my life, I've learned when it comes to mankind, there are no easy answers.

Reviewed by Bill Alward  Home

 
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