Actors: Giancarlo Giannini
Plot: Pasqualino, an Italian everyman, deserts the army during World War II. Captured by the Germans he's sent to a concentration camp, where he does almost anything to survive. In lengthy flashbacks, we his life before the war.
Plot: Pasqualino, an Italian everyman, deserts the army during World War II. Captured by the Germans he's sent to a concentration camp, where he does almost anything to survive. In lengthy flashbacks, we his life before the war.
Pros: Direction, Giannini, Editing, Originality, Black Humor
Cons: Graphic Concentration camp brutality, Annoying opening song
Seven Beauties is a stunning and often beautiful film full of black humor. The main character, our anti-hero, is a bungler, a fool who kills for a dimwitted "macho" code of honor. And he'll do pretty much anything to survive. Despite all this, and primarily due to Giannini, we often sympathize and laugh at Pasqualino, rather than dislike and despise him.
The pre-war sequences are the best, showing Pasqualino as a ladies man with 7 homely sisters. I found the concentration camp sequences too graphic, brutal and jarring when set against the rest of the film. And Wertmuller tries too hard to make a pessimistic political/cultural point about human nature.
Summary: An interesting "art house" film that can be viewed on many levels. I didn't enjoy much of it, but I found it fascinating and original. Most will find it too bizarre. Rating ***
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