Seven Beauties Movie Review

A single act of violence executed on a grand scale—how does it fit into the fabric of people's lives? Why does it happen? What manner of person commits the act? Lina Wertmuller demonstrates the foolishness of such a killing in Seven Beauties. Her protagonist (Giancarlo Giannini) kills his sister's pimp to avenge his honor, but makes the mistake of improperly setting the death scene. He is too impatient to wait for the pimp to defend himself. Consequently, he must serve time in an insane asylum and later in World War II. Then he is faced with different sorts of life choices: with so many killings in the concentration camps, does it matter who does the killing? Isn't he guilty everytime he looks the other way? Finally he is faced with his life and his life only, for he has nothing else. Seven Beauties, already hailed as Wertmuller's masterpiece, is a sizzling account of the solutions one man accepts for himself as a reaction to the senseless patterns of life. Considering its content, it's amazing that Wertmuller is so successful at injecting a quality of comic zaniness into the grim proceedings. She moves swiftly from one insanity to the other with dizzying speed, yet she skillfully blends all the imagery so that the point of this cutting edge satire is strong and clear. Note: At press time, Lina Wertmuller and Jane Campion remain the only women in the entire history of the Academy Awards to receive Oscar nominations as Best Director. AKA: Pasqualino Settebellezze; Pasqualino: Seven Beauties.

1976 116m/C IT Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Elena Fiore, Enzo Vitale; D: Lina Wertmuller; W: Lina Wertmuller; C: Tonino Delli Colli. Nominations: Academy Awards ‘76: Best Actor (Giannini), Best Director (Wertmuller), Best Foreign Film, Best Original Screenplay. VHS, LV