In many ways, it's amazing that Michelangelo Antonioni made LE AMICHE in 1955. While clearly of its time, it is so modern and you can see a line leading right from this film right to works like SEX AND THE CITY or almost any movie or TV show centered around the complicated relationships of female friends, with men mostly being distractions or sidebar characters.
The film starts with the introduction of Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago), who is preparing to luxuriate in a hot bath in her hotel room in Turin, when the maid interrupts her, asking if she can use her connecting door to the next room, where the guest hasn't been answering any summons. They discover this guest (later revealed to be Rosetta, played by Madeleine Fischer) who is laying unresponsive on her bed, having attempted suicide by sleeping pills. Clelia then meets Momina (Yvonne Furneaux), Rosetta's friend who has come to check on her. They immediately strike up a conversation that blossoms into friendship. We find out that Clelia has come from Rome back to her hometown, to supervise the opening of a new fashion salon (a sort of franchise. She is NOT the founder or designer; she will be the manager on behalf of her boss back in Rome). Although Clelia comes from a poor background, she is quickly swept into this new friend group, led by the married (but separated) Momina, but also encompassing the morose Rosetta, the artist Nene (Valentina Cortese) and the young, blonde and very silly Mariella (Anna Maria Pancani).
Momina is very interested in knowing why Rosetta has tried to kill herself, and while I won't reveal any plot points here, the answer is given fairly quickly. But the movie overall follows these higher-class women as they gallivant around the city, tormenting men and gathering them up as lovers both casual and not so casual. Although a couple of the friends are married, this is taken with varying degrees of importance. The men often barely know what has hit them. They are easily smitten by this attractive, well-heeled and seemingly fun-loving women. A loose friend group forms, but the movie is really always about the women. Their relationships. Their dialogue. Their fears and foibles. Their spats and their making-up.
While nothing explicit ever happens on screen, it's pretty clear that a lot of hanky-panky is going on here. It feels like what you'd see in a modern film. Women claiming their agency through deciding if or when they need a man and if/when they no longer need him. Or not needing a man at all. Certainly no one in the film is interested in starting a family; even if marriage might be part of their lives, there is no intimation that children are ever going to enter the picture. Young Mariella is naïve and just enjoys being with these older women and her new boyfriend. She hasn't learned any truly hard lessons yet, but we can see it coming. Nena, faithfully married to fellow artist Lorenzo, struggles when she finds out she will actually be the successful artist of the two. And perhaps her husband has a wandering eye. And perhaps it is because of his lack of success or his resentment. Or maybe he just doesn't love her and never has. Rosetta is clearly going through a severe episode of depression, one which she doesn't readily shake off. She feels very deeply and is mocked for it by Momina, the de facto leader of the group. She's got the most life experience, and the conclusions she has drawn is that life needs to be grabbed and lived and enjoyed FOR ONESELF. And she is quite cruel when others believe differently or want someone truly important and long-lasting in their lives. New friend Clelia fits in well, but we also see her observing and silently (or sometimes not silently) judging the actions of this class of women she has never been part of before, and probably only is now by luck and by virtue of managing a fashion salon.
So it all feels very 1955 but also very modern. You see the seeds of many "friend group" movies to come. At one point, I thought of THE BIG CHILL. Although in CHILL the men are key characters also, the easy banter, the loaded asides and the secrets could easily be traced back to Antonioni's film. Or, as one of the experts speaking in one of the (skimpy) extras on the Criterion Blu Ray says, the characters in the divisive HBO show GIRLS could just be LE AMICHE 60 years later.
Movies from the 50s of course, even from Italy, have a feel that is unmistakable. Everyone smokes. Banter is faster than it is today. Even the way people kiss on screen is a giveaway. And I worried at first that this film would not draw me in. That I wouldn't really care what happened. But it was pretty sneaky in making me wonder what would happen next and in actually caring what that would be. First, many of the performances are surprisingly naturalistic for 1955. Yes, in the US, method acting (think Marlon Brando) was coming to the forefront, but many of these performers were also making an effort to ground in reality what is, after all, a melodrama. With the exception of Fischer's Rosetta (the weakest performance among the 5), the rest of the ladies give convincing, lived-in performances. In particular, Drago and Furneaux reveal as much about themselves through their faces and what they don't say as in any dialogue they deliver. The male actors circulating around these powerhouses give more traditional "actor-ish" performances, but the leads are truly playing a different game. I assume Antonioni helped encourage this style from them, and it works remarkably well.
Some commentary on the films speaks to its revolutionary style. To me, the filming style felt very conventional. Not uninspired, exactly, but lacking zest or flair. I think it was a departure from Italian neo-realism that was the default style of the time, and again, it was something that today feels relatively modern. Radical in 1955; ho-hum in 2024.
I enjoyed the film very much. It would appear that Criterion had to do more work that usual to piece together this excellent restoration, and I'm glad they did. It would have been a real shame for this film to molder away. I wish Criterion has lavished more on the film than the two 25 minute talking head mini-films. They were both informative, but I would have hoped for more. More archival interviews with cast & crew. Maybe a commentary track. It's still a commendable restoration, but an overall mild disappointment.
The film starts with the introduction of Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago), who is preparing to luxuriate in a hot bath in her hotel room in Turin, when the maid interrupts her, asking if she can use her connecting door to the next room, where the guest hasn't been answering any summons. They discover this guest (later revealed to be Rosetta, played by Madeleine Fischer) who is laying unresponsive on her bed, having attempted suicide by sleeping pills. Clelia then meets Momina (Yvonne Furneaux), Rosetta's friend who has come to check on her. They immediately strike up a conversation that blossoms into friendship. We find out that Clelia has come from Rome back to her hometown, to supervise the opening of a new fashion salon (a sort of franchise. She is NOT the founder or designer; she will be the manager on behalf of her boss back in Rome). Although Clelia comes from a poor background, she is quickly swept into this new friend group, led by the married (but separated) Momina, but also encompassing the morose Rosetta, the artist Nene (Valentina Cortese) and the young, blonde and very silly Mariella (Anna Maria Pancani).
Momina is very interested in knowing why Rosetta has tried to kill herself, and while I won't reveal any plot points here, the answer is given fairly quickly. But the movie overall follows these higher-class women as they gallivant around the city, tormenting men and gathering them up as lovers both casual and not so casual. Although a couple of the friends are married, this is taken with varying degrees of importance. The men often barely know what has hit them. They are easily smitten by this attractive, well-heeled and seemingly fun-loving women. A loose friend group forms, but the movie is really always about the women. Their relationships. Their dialogue. Their fears and foibles. Their spats and their making-up.
While nothing explicit ever happens on screen, it's pretty clear that a lot of hanky-panky is going on here. It feels like what you'd see in a modern film. Women claiming their agency through deciding if or when they need a man and if/when they no longer need him. Or not needing a man at all. Certainly no one in the film is interested in starting a family; even if marriage might be part of their lives, there is no intimation that children are ever going to enter the picture. Young Mariella is naïve and just enjoys being with these older women and her new boyfriend. She hasn't learned any truly hard lessons yet, but we can see it coming. Nena, faithfully married to fellow artist Lorenzo, struggles when she finds out she will actually be the successful artist of the two. And perhaps her husband has a wandering eye. And perhaps it is because of his lack of success or his resentment. Or maybe he just doesn't love her and never has. Rosetta is clearly going through a severe episode of depression, one which she doesn't readily shake off. She feels very deeply and is mocked for it by Momina, the de facto leader of the group. She's got the most life experience, and the conclusions she has drawn is that life needs to be grabbed and lived and enjoyed FOR ONESELF. And she is quite cruel when others believe differently or want someone truly important and long-lasting in their lives. New friend Clelia fits in well, but we also see her observing and silently (or sometimes not silently) judging the actions of this class of women she has never been part of before, and probably only is now by luck and by virtue of managing a fashion salon.
So it all feels very 1955 but also very modern. You see the seeds of many "friend group" movies to come. At one point, I thought of THE BIG CHILL. Although in CHILL the men are key characters also, the easy banter, the loaded asides and the secrets could easily be traced back to Antonioni's film. Or, as one of the experts speaking in one of the (skimpy) extras on the Criterion Blu Ray says, the characters in the divisive HBO show GIRLS could just be LE AMICHE 60 years later.
Movies from the 50s of course, even from Italy, have a feel that is unmistakable. Everyone smokes. Banter is faster than it is today. Even the way people kiss on screen is a giveaway. And I worried at first that this film would not draw me in. That I wouldn't really care what happened. But it was pretty sneaky in making me wonder what would happen next and in actually caring what that would be. First, many of the performances are surprisingly naturalistic for 1955. Yes, in the US, method acting (think Marlon Brando) was coming to the forefront, but many of these performers were also making an effort to ground in reality what is, after all, a melodrama. With the exception of Fischer's Rosetta (the weakest performance among the 5), the rest of the ladies give convincing, lived-in performances. In particular, Drago and Furneaux reveal as much about themselves through their faces and what they don't say as in any dialogue they deliver. The male actors circulating around these powerhouses give more traditional "actor-ish" performances, but the leads are truly playing a different game. I assume Antonioni helped encourage this style from them, and it works remarkably well.
Some commentary on the films speaks to its revolutionary style. To me, the filming style felt very conventional. Not uninspired, exactly, but lacking zest or flair. I think it was a departure from Italian neo-realism that was the default style of the time, and again, it was something that today feels relatively modern. Radical in 1955; ho-hum in 2024.
I enjoyed the film very much. It would appear that Criterion had to do more work that usual to piece together this excellent restoration, and I'm glad they did. It would have been a real shame for this film to molder away. I wish Criterion has lavished more on the film than the two 25 minute talking head mini-films. They were both informative, but I would have hoped for more. More archival interviews with cast & crew. Maybe a commentary track. It's still a commendable restoration, but an overall mild disappointment.
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