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SEVEN BEAUTIES (1976)
Directed & Written by: Lina Wertmüller.
Produced by: Giancarlo Giannini, Arrigo Colombo & Lina Wertmüller.
Director of Photography: Tonino Delli Colli.
Edited by: Franco Fraticelli.
Music by: Enzo Jannacci.
Released by: Koch Lorber.
Language: Italian with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Italy. 116 min. Rated R.
With: Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler & Elena Fiore.
DVD Features: Disco 1: Digitally restored & re-mastered. Koch Lorber online DVD-ROM Weblink. English audio. Bonus disc: 78-minute interview with Lina Wertmüller by Italian film critic Carlo Lizzani. Lina Wertmüller trailer gallery.

The combination of farcical comedy and catastrophic pathos depicts, in a languidly-paced manner, fascism's devastating impact on Pasqualino (played by a marvelous and typically self-deprecatingly oblivious Giancarlo Giannini), as he deserts the Italian army, gets caught by Nazis and is held in a concentration camp. Intertwined flashbacks recount his Neapolitan life before the war as a two-bit hood and dapper Don Juan taking care of his mother and six sisters.

Director Wertmüller’s approach is cynically absurdist, owing a huge debt to Stanley Kubrick; from the opening sequence juxtaposing images of destruction and violence against rock music and beat poetry on the soundtrack, a style harkening back to the closing shots of Dr. Strangelove (1964); to the irony of Pasqualino being at one point deemed unsuitable for life among civil society, though he is considered fit enough for the military, in moments that anticipate the ambiguous satire of Full Metal Jacket (1987). Even the film’s title is incongruous (it emphasizes beauty, though the events depicted are definitely not beautiful, and as Pasqualino explains, he was nicknamed “Seven Beauties” due to his ugly looks yet charming appeal to women). Indeed, Wertmüller’s theme is that of the havoc wrought by military conflict – a Kubrickian motif, most explicit in 1957’s Paths of Glory. In Wertmüller’s film, Pasqualino’s life is suddenly interrupted by war, rendering everything preceding it as meaningless.

Though many scenes are pitch-perfectly entertaining and compelling – such as a musical number by Pasqualino’s whorish sister and an exquisite monologue by Pedro, the anarchist camp prisoner (Fernando Rey in a poignant performance) – the film does not quite have a cumulative emotional impact. This is perhaps due to its wry, understated quality (a bit too subtle at times).

DVD Extras: Fortunately, there is individual scene access to the long but engaging interview with the director. Wertmüller, most appropriately, refers to her film style as “grotesque,” as being able to find the laughs within darkness. The most relevant section, chapter six, details the genesis of Seven Beauties: a man working as a prison technical consultant on one of her earlier films told her the real-life story of a Neapolitan who had killed someone and cut him up (the origin of Pasqualino’s downfall). It is also fascinating to hear how Wertmüller combined her desire to make a concentration camp-set film with her wish to work with Shirley Stoler, the actress playing the role of the commanding German officer, having first seen her in The Honeymoon Killers as a nurse seduced by a gigolo that sounds similar to her role here.

On a more visual note, it is amusing how Wertmüller seems to have consulted with a production designer even for this interview, since she is dressed completely in white, accentuated by her white hair, white-colored glasses, and a white couch; this contrasts sharply with the deep red of both her lipstick and the fan she is holding. One flaw with this color scheme is the yellow lettering of the English subtitles. Against the white background, they are extremely difficult to read from a distance. Reymond Levy
April 11, 2004