the ignorant faëries

i was insomniac last night and desperately flipping the channels (from first december till after new year's is always a wasteland for television) when i skipped past a movie that seemed to feature amanda tapping. if you know her, it's prolly because 1. you're from canadia or 2. you watch stargate: SG1 or 3. both. i consider this woman a paragon of hotness - on sg1, she plays a scientist-soldier and combat gear flatters her greatly - and so i stopped.

i quickly realised that the woman might be ms. tapping's clone, seeing as how much she moved and how her expressions matched in an almost creepy way the aforementioned british-canadian's, but she was not, in fact, the same woman.

i had stumbled upon a rather remarkable movie: le fate ignorante (2002) (the ignorant faëries, called in english his secret life). incidentally, here's a half-decent pic of the actress in question, though regrettably i cannot show you her in motion so you can understand how much she moves like ms. tapping does:

note the emily like me cooking behind her.

anyway, i'm afraid the linked page might be lost, so here's what it says, with links added to appropriate information about unfamiliar persons or topics:

The title of the film is the Italian name for a book of poetry by Nazim Hikmet, a leading 20th century Turkish poet, and the book plays an important role in the plot of the film. Ferzan Özpetek is a Turkish-born but Italian-based gay director. When the film was released in Italy it received good critical reviews and an unexpected excellent response from a middle-class audience.

The story is centred on Antonia, 40ish, for 15 years happily married to her schoolmate Massimo, living a very confortable upper-class life in a large villa on a nice pond in a posh suburb of Rome. She gave up her dreams and ambitions of medical career in favour of marriage, she gave up the idea of having children to indulge her husband's preference.

Suddenly, Antonia's life is shattered by the death of her husband in a car accident. Going through her husband's belongings in search for memories of the life spent together, Antonia, by chance, discovers that Massimo had a lover: an inscription on the back of a painting that Massimo kept in his office reveals to her the painful truth. She wants to know more and, through Massimo's secretary, Antonia dicovers the surname and the address where the painting has been sent. Antonia decides she wants to meet his husband`s lover and goes to working-class suburb of Rome where she finds out that his lover is not a woman but a handsome gay, Michele, who works at Mercati Generali and with whom Massimo had a seven year affair.

Michele lives with an extended family that includes gays, Turkish refugees ( considered Third World people in Italy), transsexuals, prostitutes, a young gay with AIDS. It is a completely new and "different" world for a mainstream society woman such as Antonia and she is accepted into the group with the openness that is evidenced by their diversity. Antonia learns more about her husband's secret life ("Massimo cooked?" Antonia asks after being told he used to make meatballs and Serra replies: "I'll give you the recipe if you want") and after the initial mutual suspicion and hostility, Michele and Antonia grow closer and closer and she becomes a regular at the community's Sunday lunches on Michele's rooftop balcony.

During one of their conversations, Michele and Antonia discover that they share the same taste in poetry: their favourite author is the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. When Michele confesses that he met Massimo in a bookstore while they were both trying to buy a copy of Hikmet's poems, Antonia reveals that the book was for her because Massimo had never heard about Hikmet. Antonia and Michele's complicity seems to lead to a love story (think of their passionate kiss on her sofa).

The director portrays the community gathering in Michele's flat from Antonia's point of view. We can see the strong contrast between her ordered, unadventurous, upper-class existence (in the words of her mother, Veronica, Antonia is a woman who was never very curious about life) and the chaotic life of Michele's open family.

The film becomes an intriguing exploration of a radically different reality that allows Antonia to cross the boundaries of sexual orientation, social class, urban areas and ethnic groups, although this does not imply that Antonia gives up her upper-class existence and morality (she doesn't want to be seen by her maid while she is having an ice cream with Michele).

Besides the main plot centred on Antonia's discovery of her husband's secret life, there are subplots portraying the lives of the multigendered and multiethnic community living around Michele in a working class suburb of Rome and stressing the solidarity and the ties that unify them.

Near the end of the film we learn that Antonia is pregnant (the child is Massimo's because she hasn't had any sexual intercourse after his death) but we are not told clearly the reason why she decides not to share her news with her "new family".

this outline of the film is very general, but it covers the bases appropriately. le fate ignoranti could have been a banal flick - if it were american, i'd bet my eyeteeth it would have been. but it really, really ain't - i wish i could find a way for you to see it, but unless you can hunt it down on cable, i think it might be some time afore you can, o my em'lys and henrys.

the scene they mention about antonia and michele kissing isn't exactly a love story. it's about two people who discover their dead love was pretending and lying to both of them, and they are drunk and lonely and they miss him, and yet so much of what he was to each turns out to have been stolen from the other - massimo's pretention to hikmet's poetry was actually antonia's, for example. i think that's why she leaves, incidentally. she's taking time only for herself, to give her distance and independence so that she doesn't get trapped in a new, 'safe' situation only. she gets to choose it.

the guide you just read isn't completed: it continues by introducing questions, which honestly have made me think pretty hard about the film despite the fact that they are not particularly deep questions. they are thin knives that cut straight to the heart of mysteries we don't realise have been hidden, and i must be slipping since i didn't ask any of them.

And now your personal opinions on this film will be greatly appreciated. A starting point can be provided by the following questions.

What do you think of the plot?

Did you find it unrealistic?

How is sexual diversity seen in your countries? In Italy homosexuality is still accepted with difficulty, with suspicion. You are considered "different". Maybe because we (Italians) have a strong sense of the family with children, maybe we are still influenced by religious values, etc.

Do yoy think this film is about homosexuality? or don't you think that it is about the difficulty in facing a world and situations that are simply unknown and people who are unusual, different from us? Do you think the film wants to stress the weakness of people (such as Antonia) who has always lived a sheltered, predictable life without unexpected events or emotions in contrast with the life of the multigendered and multiethnic group who lives from day to day?

In Michele's flat we meet typical examples of people who are not very well integrated in the Italian society. Italy is still very conservative in its attitudes towards diversity, towards anyone or anything that can be considered "different" from mainstream values and attitudes.

Italy still has strong "sexual taboos". How do you think Antonia feels when she is with Michele and his friends?

What do you know of Antonia private life apart from being married to Massimo and working as a "medical technician"? What do you know of Michele and his friends? What did you feel when you learnt that Massimo's lover was a man?

Apart from the two main characters, Antonia and Michele, which characters did you like the most and why?

The director doesn`t provide a clear ending. Can you guess the reason why she leaves?

What will Antonia do after her baby's birth in your opinion?

Can you guess a sequel of the story?

my favourite character is hard to pick. antonia grows from a sheltered, upper middle-class housewife to a slowly self-liberating woman, plus she is attractive and the main character. but i have a soft spot for the overweight, dykey turkish woman, serra, played by the eponymous serra yılmaz, who provides such an anchor and backbone for the 'michele household'.

and i have an obvious bias and love for mara, played by the unsurprisingly nearly unknown lucrezia valia - a lovely and brave transwoman. man, the rack on that one! but so many of the other characters have trite natures that are overturned in startling moments of beauty and depth, like the coarse, low-class napolitana slut luisella, played by rosaria de cicco, who late in the film sings with a beautiful voice. (both women are visible in the picture above.)

one of the more startling surprises for me was the discovery of nazim hikmet. i really, really need to go hunt down his poetry now that i've read about his life - what a remarkable man he was.