Director: Maura Delpero
Writer: Maura Delpero
Stars: Tommaso Ragno, Roberta Rovelli, Martina Scrinzi
Synopsis: 1944, Vermiglio, a remote mountain village. The arrival of Pietro, a deserter, into the family of the local teacher, and his love for the teacher’s eldest daughter, will change the course of everyone’s life.
In Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 masterpiece, Theorem (Teorema), a stranger (played by Terence Stamp) enters the household of a wealthy Italian family living in the bourgeois suburban area and turns it upside down. He seduces each and every family member, stays with them for a few moments, and even then, it leaves a mark on them, only to disappear afterward–leaving them dumbfounded and perplexed about his appearance and the whole experience. Each person is affected by this differently; they actualize and realize themselves in ways they never thought, expressing hidden emotions, desires, and opinions. The family begins as a faux embodiment of fulfillment and ends up as hollow shells that will be reinvigorated in time. Through his unique way, with dashes of provocation to make the viewer have a similar experience as the family with the stranger, Pasolini touches on self-realization and the breakdown of societal and personal boundaries through a psychological “attack” on their morals and concealed pleasures.
Pasolini uses a supernatural force to break what this bourgeois family deems clandestine and flip it into disarray, using the ashes coming down from Mount Etna as a symbol of rebirth. Last year, German director Christian Petzold used Theorem as inspiration for his film Afire. But instead of desolation, a beautiful, relatable truth lies behind the ashes. Similarly, albeit without the mysticality and hollow, brooding nature of Pasolini’s existentialist themes, Maura Delpero’s new astonishing film, Vermiglio, does the same thing. A stranger disrupts an entire Italian family by his mere presence and principles. Instead, Delpero uses this presence of a stranger as a catalyst for a chain reaction tether in the titular village’s fear and repression during the end of WWII, all of which implode gradually through minimalist expressions into an upheaval of drowning emotional weight.
Vermiglio is set near the end of WWII, in the titular alpine village where snow coats the plains in a rich white that pops in each frame yet adds a coldness that molds with the darkness lingering in the narrative. Every square inch of this village is beautifully framed by cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, known for his work on Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan and Loveless, making the frames look like paintings or old photographs. But this beauty seemingly comes with a price, as the villagers have several burdens induced by the war and apart. The story has a meandering feel as Delpero takes the viewer through the village to meet and explore the minds of those who inhabit it. You get sparse moments with some of them, later switching to others in the next scene to get the community feel of that time and place.
Regardless, the main narrative revolves around a family of nine, led by patriarch Cesare (Tommaso Ragno), particularly focused on one of his daughters, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the one he vows to protect the most. The name Lucia is no coincidence; it is taken from a saint (Santa Lucia), and their journeys share similar thresholds and garner sadness and hope. Saint Lucia was a virgin and a martyr, considered the patron saint of the eyes or the blind. She became a martyr by having her eyes removed to avoid marrying a pagan. This action reflects her martyrdom and places Santa Lucia as a symbol of purity and devotion–the light emerging from her fidelity to the land. It is an act of sacrifice, rewarded by getting her sight back through divine intervention. The physical eye was not her literal sight; understanding God’s truth guided her to a better path.
In Vermiglio, Scrinzi, who glances and pierces with her big blue eyes, plays her Lucia with a sacrificial tone to her persona, as if everything that transpires in the film gives way to a better path in life during turmoil–even if there are specific scenarios where it does not seem as such–all for acceptance and embrace in many aspects. All of this begins when a stranger, Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), an army deserter, comes crawling into the village terrain–Pasolini’s “visitor” that will cause ripple effects on the family members, making them feel things they have never felt before, ponder things they didn’t worry about, and desire something they never thought of wanting. Lucia and Pietro are the vessels for the two sides of uncertainty: the catalyst and the receiver. Their unison shifts the ideologies of Lucia’s other sisters, who also have their respective debacles with different relationships and bonds because of their hidden desires or newly found ones.
Delpero shows us these psychological and emotional collapse and reconstruction moments through subtle movements and focusing on small details, such as looks, gestures, facial expressions, and limited talk, never relying on dialogue to set the tone or guide the performances. This minimalist approach makes each scenario realistic, almost like recreating photographs through cinema. The specificity of its setting, from the characters’ pasts to the rich detailing in the background, adds to this because Delpero dedicates time for the audience to feel right then and there by using visual exposition rather than being verbose. From the dialects to the gowns, suits, and outfits, you see the extent of her research and the power of her direction. She has a steady hand and even better control in maneuvering her cast to create the most striking frame possible.
Vermilgio, both the film and the place, become easy to perceive yet tricky to catch as its narrative, containing climatic twists in the latter half, develops. Everything is taciturn in speech and expressionistic in its emotional physicality, working wonders on its cold, tight atmosphere that shifts as each season comes and goes. Slowly, Delpero constructs an observational piece about the passing of time amidst a fracture in a setting deemed clandestine and a post-war subservience. Vermiglio proceeds efficiently as its textured, tactile tone is felt across the snowy plains. Delpero inflamed the lands with her storytelling and image composition. It remains in my head, and I hope others do so because of its painting-like visual language that speaks louder than words. Each frame is curated by an elegance and poise, a lavishness that takes you back to a distant time–cinematic collective remembrance even if its memories are not our own.