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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
PRIMO AMORE
The motivations of the characters, as well as the direction, are straightforward, Sonia being a type
easy to recognize.
(Even in the recent frothy French film, Look at Me, a slender young woman bemoans the
increase of a few grams.) She is often filmed alone, or when she is among others, she’s silent.
With many shots from her point of view, the film clearly sympathizes with her. Connecting the
tenuous expository scenes are hard-hitting moments as Sonia continues to starve herself, and
Vittorio offers rewards and punishments. As her vertebrae become more visible, the film turns
into a visceral experience, while backhandedly attacking the male prerogative. The thoroughly
lived-in and subtle performances (especially Michela Cescon in a no-holds-barred performance),
make sure the ironically titled Primo Amore never veers into a diatribe or melodrama. Kent Turner
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Just as he molds objects into being,
goldsmith Vittorio (co-writer Vitaliano Trevisan) remakes a
willing Galatea, 25-year-old Sonia (Michela Cescon), in his own image. Meeting on a blind date, he admits to her he’s
surprised; he thought she would be thinner. She offers to leave the cafe, but he insists on her
staying. At 125 pounds, Sonia is not all overweight, which the film makes abundantly
clear - she models nude for an art class. They soon move in together, living isolated
outside
of Verona. Afterwards at a swimming pool, Sonia examines the lithe body
of an attractive blond woman and
silently castigates herself. She then willingly follows Vittorio's dictates, eating vegetables while he eats
anything he likes. (In
bed, she also does all the work.) She loses weight and continues the regiment because, as she reassures her lover, “you
like me this way.” Vittorio, on the other hand, is hardly a
paradigm of male pulchritude. In his early forties, his body is beginning to sag. Possibly medicated, he
reveals little behind his steely blue eyes.