CinemaItaliaUK returns for its 2023 season with Corrado Ceron’s Acqua e anice.
This is the first feature by the 42 year-old from Vicenza, who has served a lengthy
apprenticeship since taking a diploma in film direction at the famous Cinecittà
Studios in Rome after graduating in Philosophy from the University of Milan.
Ceron won a prize at the Venice Film Festival for his first short, Il mio primo schiaffo,
in 2010 and has since been recognised at other events for the likes of Un amore di
plastica (2013) and Apnea (2018). Having contributed a segment to Silvia
Lombardo’s La ballata dei precari (2012), Ceron produced a couple of feature
screenplays - Mai frend (2011) and Zanzare (2016) - without securing funding. But
his persistence has paid off and he makes a decent impression with this `dance hall
road movie’ that is also known as Olimpia’s Way.
Once the queen of the ballroom, 70 year-old singer Olimpia Belloni (Stefania
Sandrelli) still insists on people dancing attendance in the lagoon town of
Comacchio. She may have panic attacks in supermarkets, but she still demands
adoration from her married lover and dumps him when he gives her one of his wife’s
necklaces. At the lido, she also ignores requests to keep her top on and enjoys
irritating the prudes she claims are merely jealous.
When she is invited to sing at her sister’s wedding, Olimpia asks beach attendant
Maria (Silvia D’Amico) to drive her in the tour van of her old band, The Caprices.
Needing the money, the reserved thirtysomething agrees, but soon discovers that
her new boss is rather a handful, who has a few stops she needs to make along the
route that will culminate in Zurich.
Having diverted to a cemetery to keep a promise to sing at an old fan’s grave,
Olimpia visits ageing devotee, Bruno (Duilio Pizzocchi), and urges him to resist his
negative thoughts and remember that he has a family that depends on him. Her next
port of call is Gimmi (Paolo Rossi), her onetime guitarist who now works as a
fisherman. She confronts him with a letter from a woman accusing him of betraying
her and Gimmi admits that he took money from her to fix his rotting teeth. However,
he denies having forced himself upon her and acquiesces when Olimpia orders him
to take a bath and apologise in person.
Maria is embarrassed at witnessing the contretemps. But she is grateful for Gimmi’s
tips on how to handle Olimpia (who changes wigs to suit her mood) and heeds his
advice about not blaming herself for the regretted decisions that have shaped her
fate. She’s not surprised when he joins them next morning, but is dismayed when
they take a diversion to play a prank on a rival band by putting sugar in their petrol
tank. The Dinamici quartet forgive Olimpia over a roadside supper, but an impromptu
session stalls when she breaks down after seeing a vision of her old flame, Enrico
Danzi (Manuel Benati).
As Gimmi opts to return home, Olimpia and Maria travel on alone. She’;s still fragile
when she wakes in a hotel next morning, but perks up when she tries to matchmake
Maria with their waiter, Silvio (Diego Facciotti). Against her better judgement, Maria
allows herself to be made up and loaded into a dress. Feeling hurt after discovering
photographs of feet on her ex-boyfriend's phone, she lures Silvio into the van with
prospect of reading some of Olimpia’s wackier fan letters. But he rebuffs her
advances because he has a girlfriend and Maria feels foolish.
Olimpia is unrepentant, although she needs a little boosting before she sings `The
Happiest Day’ for her sister, Clara (Luisa De Santis). As she waits in the van, Maria
finds forms for an assisted suicide clinic and is aghast that she has been hired for
what is essentially a funeral procession. She informs Clara of her discovery and she
agrees to take Olimpia in. But she is so distressed by the prospect of suffering with
dementia that Maria bundles her into the van in the middle of the night and they
make their escape.
They take a side road to an abandoned resort, where The Caprices had once
played. As they wander round, Olimpia coaxes Maria into dancing and they
embrace. Back on the road, they pass along snowless roads into Switzerland, where
Olimpia reassures Maria that her decision is final and that she is at peace with
herself. As she meets the doctor in charge of her case, Maria finds a card in the van,
in which Olimpia reveals that she is her grandmother and is glad to have had the
chance to get to know her after seeing so little of her daughter after Danzi had forced
himself upon her when she was 16. Touched by the news, Maria drives home and
goes topless on the lido before wading into the water.
Despite springing a few too many surprises in the final reel, this is a genial first-time
outing that provides Stefania Sandrelli with her best role since Paolo Virzi’s The Most
Beautiful Thing (2010). Switching deftly between being vivacious and vulnerable,
Sandrelli conveys Olimpia’s sense of imperious self-worth, while also hinting at her
mischievous and melancholic sides. Whether flaunting sunbathing regulations,
coming clean to a cuckqueaned wife, or settling old scores from her illustrious past,
Olimpia says what’s on her mind and hangs the consequences.
By contrast, Maria is more circumspect and curses herself for not finishing university
and getting stuck in a dead-end job to be close to a boyfriend who had always been
unworthy of her. She has an innate decency, however, which ensures she stands by
Olimpia, even when she’s out of line. As her lack of background makes her a
reactive character, her fling with Silvio rings hollow. But Silvia D’Amico makes a
perfect foil for Sandrelli, as both a guarded stranger and a steadfast guardian.
In addition to being structurally skittish, the screenplay co-written by Federico Fava
and Valentina Zanella skimps on details about the extent of Olimpia’s singing
celebrity and what she has been doing since her heyday. The magnitude of the
climactic revelations somewhat limits their options, while the nature of Olimpia’s
relationship with her sister is left vague so that it doesn’t complicate the final leg of
the journey. However, Bruno and Gimmi are ciphers who are used to emphasise
how isolated Olimpia has become in her twilight years and shed little light on the
fame that resulted in her feeling so obligated to those who sent her fan mail.
Ceron directs steadily enough, although he and cinematographer Massimo Moschin
might have made more of the passing countryside than the odd drones shot of the
van. Daniele Benati and Claudio Zanoni’s score complements the rhythms of Davide
Vizzini’s editing. But special mention should go to whoever came up with Stefanelli’s
wigs, as the long, pinkish one she wears to the clinic adds more poignancy to her
parting than her recipe for the perfect anisette.