In this pensive wintertime drama, Italian filmmaker Maura Delpero (Maternal) directs (and writes) the viewer into a remote village high in the Italian Alps during the tail-end of World War II, isolated to the expansive Graziadei family after the arrival of Sicilian military deserter Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico) and his lightning-quick burgeoning romance with the family’s eldest daughter Lucia (Martina Scrinzi).
While the film initially draws the viewer into a stable lens of the family’s pastoral farming life guided by the stony-faced patriarch and village teacher Cesare (Tommaso Ragno)—milking cows, sitting down for breakfast, mother Adele (Roberta Rovelli) giving birth to an eighth child—the story’s heart is held up by the mother and the three daughters of the family, and their whispered, late-night conversations held while packed into a single bed.
Through crotchety arguments between older men about whether deserting a war makes one a coward; whether eldest son Dino should be pushed; and hushed discussions about how soldiers returning from war are never the same, Vermiglio frequently circles its story back to women and the struggle each has against their isolated and rigid culture. As Lucia confides in her sisters before rushing into marriage with Pietro, middle sister Ada (Rachele Potrich) wrestles with her compulsions to punish herself for having sexual desires and longing to escape the village, and youngest sister Flavia (Anna Thaler) appears to be the only one with any hope of escaping as she’s deemed the only child smart enough to send to boarding school.
This is true of the acting as well: All of the men in the story are played as secretive, harsh and unmoving, their gentlest moments being when they’re silent. Rovelli’s performance as the family’s long-suffering mother is akin to a pressure cooker as Cesare’s domineering over the children weighs on her over time; Potrich’s portrayal of a straightlaced girl struggling to bottle her emotions and chemistry with Carlotta Gamba (who plays flirty and rebellious neighbor Virginia) is spot-on; and Scrinzi’s emotional performance as Lucia steals the show after [spoilers that would be straight-up evil to share].
Delpero expertly sets up the family to be unquestioning of their traditional Catholic values. They follow Cesare’s lead in welcoming Pietro into the family, letting the audience watch everything quietly explode in the family members’ faces, forcing them to abandon previous ambitions as the war ends and winter fades into spring.
9
+Stellar all-around cast; multi-layered story bound to engage
-Takes a little while to get the ball rolling (though well-worth the wait)
