NOT OF THIS WORLD (FUORI DAL MONDO)
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Intra Films Director: Giuseppe Piccioni Writer: Giuseppe Piccioni and Gualtiero Rosella Lucia Zei Cast: Margherita Buy, Silvio Orlando, Carolina Freschi, Maria Cristina Minerva, Sonia Gessner, Alessandro Di Natale
When a newborn babe is left in a trash can or a park bench, that's sad; it's tragic. When an unlikely person discovers the baby, someone who seems not in the slightest prepared to deal with the treasure, that's fun; it's comedy. In "Not of This World," winner of four Donatello awards (that's the Italian Oscar) and Italy's entry into the American Academy Awards competition, director Giuseppe Piccioni successfully integrates comic undertones with a poignant motif, giving his audience a marvelously layered tale of two people whose lives are changed by this tiny bundle of joy.
How would the Americans treat such a theme? In Charles Shyer's 1987 comedy "Baby Boom," a supercharged business exec's life is changed when she inherits a baby, in a sweet comedy featuring Diane Keaton in top form, one which takes aim at the self-centeredness of 1980s yuppies. That same year Leonard Nimoy turned out another comedy, "3 Men and a Baby," about a trio of swinging bachelor roommates who find themselves custodians of an infant--a movie that also featured winning performances all around. If you're satisfied with mere comedy and you're not in the mood for getting under the skins of your characters, you can't go wrong with these. But if you want a film that does not stereotype your characters (Keaton as pure yuppie, Selleck as solid swinger) but puts a human dimension even on the sort of woman who would abandon her baby, go see "Not of This World." Featuring an unaffected sound track of Ludovico Einaudi's marvelous piano music and a set of unpretentious performances about people who in their separate ways are unsure of themselves, "Not of This World" is so heartwarming that unless you capito Italiano, you can't be blamed for wanting to throw tomatoes at the technically miserable subtitles which are virtually unreadable whenever they are contrasted with a white background.
In its special way, this movie takes off on the adage that marriage doesn't make all that much difference in your life: the big change comes when you're dealing with your first child. The story opens in Milan on an attractive nun, Caterina (Margherita Buy--who resembles a young Catherine Deneuve) who, while walking in the park, has a baby thrust into her arms by a jogger. (That the runner take a few puffs on a cigarette makes you wonder whether Jim Jarmusch was called in as a consultant.) Instantly bonding with the little tyke, Caterina takes her package to the local hospital. As she gazes upon the little kid who is to get the name Fausto, she is thrown into doubts about her commitment to God. With eleven months to go before she is to take her final vows and with her own mother insisting that Caterina is wasting her life, the poor woman is faced by the conflict of her life. Nor is Ernesto (Silvio Orlando--who looks like a young Peter Sellers and acts a nerdy Woody Allen)--about to continue his own lonely, single existence unmoved by the needs of others. Having inherited a dry cleaning establishment from his father, he has nothing but complaints about debts, does not remember the names of the women who work for him, and is generally considered a decent but unlovable guy. Caterina tracks down Ernesto through a sweater that served as the baby's wrap, and while this unlikely couple--both assuming that Ernesto is the father--seek out the woman who abandoned the toddler, Piccioni treats us to a delicate, believable, trenchant peeling away of their defenses.
The title, "Not of This World," refers at first glance to Caterina's commitment to the Church, a dedication that takes her out of the usual mundane concerns of the Italian citizenry. Not for her the worries of making a living, or keeping a family together, or successfully raising little ones. But on closer examination, we see that both of Piccioni's absorbing principals are figuratively from outer space. Both have lost the usual links they might enjoy from their society, having cast off the connections that ordinary people have to home and family. When Caterina shucks her habit for a day and dons a plain burgundy sweater, heading off in Ernesto's car to seek out Fausto's apparently callous mom, we in the audience wonder whether these disparate personalities will get together--Caterina declining to take her vows and Ernesto finding the woman of his dreams. But Piccioni--whose "The Great Blek," "Condemned to Wed," and "Love, Money and Philosophy" are little known to American moviegoers--is not about to go for facile endings.
What's particularly captivating about the director's work is not only the anticipation we feel as we watch the growing alliance between Ernesto and Caterina, but the humanity he shows of people about whom we'd never think twice. The nuns are a diverse and even fun-loving lot, enjoying their weekly games of bingo, and the women who work in the laundry have families and dreams and joys of their own-- hopes that Ernesto has all but ignored in treating them like cogs in the pressing machines. Marina (Marina Massironi), the lonely and idiosyncratic girl in the bar who leaves her phone number on napkins; the Mother Superior (Sonia Gessner), who urges Caterina to reconsider her commitment to the Church; Gabriele (Alessandro Di Natale), the boy friend and probably father of Fausto; all seek human connection and in doing so provide some of the gentle humor of the story as well as the pathos. Teresa (Carolina Freschi), the frail- looking woman who had abandoned the child, is not a bad person but rather one who is vulnerable and who has given up a child for whom she feels inadequate to care. "Not of This World" portrays a little world of Milanese people who are like the rest of us: they're lonely, they're happy; they're conflicted, they're confident; they're moody, they're content. In short they really are of this world, and Piccioni lovingly shows them to us with all their humanity.
Not Rated. Running Time: 104 minutes. (C) 2000 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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