Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
To mark MoMA’s December retrospective, “Marcello and Chiara Mastroianni, A Family Affair,” we are highlighting contemporary films made by director Christophe Honoré and Chiara Mastroianni. Together, they have given voice to the plight of Generation X through their films, displaying a chemistry not unlike what her father shared with Federico Fellini.
Mastroianni shines in the title role of Honoré’s 2010 film “Non ma fille, tu n’iras pas danser” (Making Plans for Léna). Driven by profound unhappiness and inner turmoil, Léna leaves her husband, escaping with her children to the family’s country home. The weekend goes sideways when her husband shows up, setting in motion a gripping family drama. All the performances are outstanding: intense yet subtle. It’s a thought-provoking portrait of the toll stress can take on one’s mental health. Honoré manages to show the point-of-view of each generation of the family.
Catherine Deneuve and Mastroianni play mother and daughter in Honoré’s devastating 2011 “Les bien-aimés” (Beloved), which takes place over three decades. The pair converge at the start of the film in a tender encounter during which they sing about the travails of love and then walk across a Paris bridge into the night. What begins as a rom-com-style musical becomes a deeply moving drama observing life after loss. Mastroianni gives a heartfelt, intense performance as Véra, a woman struggling through an impossible love affair with an ex-pat musician from New York. There is a storyline about the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, done delicately and tastefully, taking us back to that day’s surreal atmosphere. The film is two hours long, and by the end of it, you really feel like you just spent three decades with these people. This is a film that will stay with you long after it ends.
Honoré and Mastroianni’s 2020 “Chambre 212″ (On a Magical Night) is a fantastical tale of the consequences of infidelity. Mastroianni is brilliant: funny yet reflective as her character, Maria, a law professor, moves into the hotel across the street after revealing to her husband that she’s been having an affair with one of her students. She talked about her character during a live Q&A hosted by Lincoln Center. “It was wonderful to play such a character because she’s so free. I don’t feel like that at all. Not for conventional reasons, but just the idea of freedom, of doing something you want to do, and I think that’s what makes her really cool because she could have been a character that is unbearable. So for me, it was wonderful to have the energy of that character,” she explained.
Their latest collaboration, “Marcello Mio,” which made its North American premiere at MoMA, features Chiara impersonating her father. The resemblance is uncanny in a whimsical yet sentimental tribute to her father. We’ll keep you updated on when the film will be distributed nationwide.
All of the aforementioned films are available on Amazon. Click the titles for direct links to stream them.
To view “Making Plans for Lena” click here.
To view “Beloved,” click here.
To view “On a Magical Night,” click here.
For more on the MoMa retrospective, click here.
