Open Roads: New Italian Cinema At Lincoln Center 2023

[Chris Knipp]

SUSANNA NICCHIARELLI: CHIARA (2020


MARGHARITA MAZZUCCO IN CHIARA

A female counterpoint of Francis of Assisi

This modern take on an early thirteenth-century Italian saint, a contemporary and associate of Francis of Assisi, features the star of My Brilliant Friend, Margherita Mazzucco. It's free about facts, also off-putting, or, if it's to your taste, enlivening, with its use of staring into the camera fourth-wall-breaking moments and interpolated musical numbers, which are like livened-up Gregorian chants with a pop flavor; also moments when the screen goes black (why are current filmmakers so fond of dark screens?) Despite the attention-getting effects, it has charm and it tells a good story, especially of Chiara's relationship with Saint Francis, his triumph over illness and his wonderful prayer.

This takes place around Assisi, using the real sites, and Chiara leaves her family to serve a hippieish, sweet and toweringly cute Saint Francis, played by Andrea Carpenzano, who five years ago was one of the budding mafiosi assassins in the D'Innocenzo brothers' Boys Cry and is quite striking here. This is at first a setback for Chiara, because Francis paternalistically sends her and her girlfriend to a convent where they are put to work as scullery maids - not what she had in mind at all. She breaks away from that, and fights off a sadistic uncle and has her own group of poorly dressed, bare-headed followers. Chiara starts performing miracles, in which she often surprises herself, and gathers sisters who include the motherly Cristiana (Carlotta Natoli),and the middle-aged Balvina (Paola Tiziana Cruciani), who has health issues. She asks for Vatican recognition of her order on a par with Francis' and Papal emissary Cardinal Ugolino (Luigi Lo Cascio) is sent to check up.

Ugolino says no woman can set an example for anything and women can't travel or take a vow of poverty. Lo Cascio adds a note of colorful medieval glitz, and turns into the new pope, Gregory IX, returning dressed in a tent-like robe of bright blue for spring and riding a white horse and with attendants in bright yellow. Nichiarelli delights in such theater as well as oddball moments, like breaks to discuss cooking apropos of a miracle involving a jar of olive oil or Francis, who we learn loved to eat, enjoying a local delicacy on a trip to the holy land. The director keeps the nuns very austere, but still surprises audience expectations frequently. The emphasis is on how determined and resilient Chiara is. This is a striking, original and touching film about sainthood and Franciscan style sweetness. Even if it can't quite match the revolutionary moment of Rossellini's radical Saint Francis or Pasolini's austere Gospel, from when Italian cinema was the cutting edge, Chiara seeks to capture some of their freshness and add its own distinctive touches.

Chiara, 106 mins., debuted at the Biennale Sept. 9,2022, also playing at Busan, Rio, and Vienna. Screened for this review as part of the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema June 1-8, 2023 series at Lincoln Center (with Cinnecittà).
Friday, June 2 at 3:00pm (Q&A with actor Margherita Mazzucco)
Wednesday, June 7 at 9:00pm