This weekend the Gene Siskel Film Center kicks off a monthlong retrospective devoted to Italian writer-director Lina Wertmüller with the 1975 black comedy Seven Beauties. One of the most contentious films of its decade, Beauties is a picaresque tale of one man’s survival through World War II; its most controversial passages take place in a realistically rendered Nazi concentration camp. Wertmüller gained her reputation as a provocateur with such international hits as Love & Anarchy and Swept Away, and Beauties is perhaps her most provocative film. It presents the protagonist’s survival as a sick joke, and it invokes the commedia dell’arte tradition in its presentations of fascism, murder, and genocide. Remarkably the movie was one of Wertmüller’s biggest successes, particularly in the U.S., where it was nominated for four Oscars, including best director. (Wertmüller was in fact the first woman to receive this distinction.) Seen today Beauties remains a problematic work, a compelling and offensive movie that invites viewers to laugh at some of the most troubling subjects.
The flashbacks of Beauties show that Pasqualino ran a mattress factory before the war, using his minor status to live as a little tyrant among the poor of Naples. He gropes the female employees of his factory and talks big to people he sees on the street. (Giannini plays these scenes with impressive comic gusto—one is fascinated by this obnoxious lout in spite of his behavior.) Pasqualino is a pathetic figure even here, puffing himself up and talking big about his family’s honor. His encounter with Totonno, the pimp, shows that his big talk is nothing but that—the pimp knocks him out in one punch, making a fool of Pasqualino among his prostitutes. Pasqualino gets even by breaking into Totonno’s home later that night and shooting him dead. Unfortunately he shoots before his victim can grab a gun of his own, meaning Pasqualino will be unable to claim the murder was in self-defense.
