Caterina in the Big City (Caterina va in città), directed by Paolo Virzì, is an Italian tragicomedy that purports to show how teenage Caterina Iacovoni (played by Alice Teghil) adjusts as her middle class family moves from the small Italian town of Montaldo Di Castro to Rome. The story becomes a soap opera that portrays the absurdities of contemporary life in urban Italy. When the film begins, Caterina's father Giancarlo (played by Sergio Castellitto) addresses his high school accounting students in that small town, where he was assigned to teach after graduating from college. He tells them that they are the worst class that he has ever taught; clearly, he is so opinionated that he does not care whom he insults. The family relocates to Rome because he has applied for a transfer, presumably because his elderly aunt needs twenty-four hour care in the same apartment where he once lived. Some years ago, Giancarlo met Agata (played by Margherita Buy) in Montaldo Di Castro; they married, and their only child is Caterina, a sweet girl who is especially enthusiastic while singing in the chorus of the small town school. In Rome, however, Caterina's school is a zoo of upper-class narcissists, similar to the atmosphere in Mean Girls (2002) and Orange County (2002). She is first befriended by the daughter of a leftist writer and later by the daughter of the rightist deputy prime minister. Her boyfriends range from a son of someone rich and famous to an ordinary Australian lad who lives in the apartment across the street but returns to Australia before the friendship has time to grow. Giancarlo is upset that Italian society has a class structure, which he believes deprives him of opportunities to make a better life. He says so on a television talk show so vehemently that he is escorted from the studio audience and then is fired from his teaching job. While Giancarlo is obsessed with his strong opinions, his wife carries on a friendship with one of Giancarlo's former Rome schoolmates. Although Agata does not intend to get a divorce, when Giancarlo realizes that Agata and his boyhood chum have such a happy relationship, he disappears. Then Agata and her new boyfriend are happy together, bringing some solace to Caterina. What the film says about the class structure, however, contradicts Giancarlo. Instead of a closed society, rich families accept midde class Caterina, and Giancarlo gains access to a film director as well as a government minister; his uncouth deportment is the problem, not his class background. The film also shows that those who are narcissistic suffer a worse fate than those who are considerate of others. Politically, there is an extreme ideological division among children, reflecting views of their parents. Whereas the extremist Communist and neofascist leaders are good social friends, moderates are despised for wanting some modest progress rather than continual ideological gridlock. Adding ideological extremism to individual narcissism, thus, adds up to a chaotic social and political order for the children. Thus, Caterina in the City provides a vision of what may happen as the ideological divide in the United States widens. Caterina, her mother, and her mother's new boyfriend are fortunately in being able to lead normal lives amid the cacophony. MH
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