I Knew Her Well

Italy and France were really gunning for each other in the sixties to see who could have the coolest looking people on film. This film ends with a "Fine", which I know means "End" in English, but I would like for it to me "Fine, this film is finally over." This is a largely plotless look at one woman's day-to-day life, where she takes on many lovers, and tries to become famous. I just read an essay about this on Criterion's website, and I was like, "oh, I missed a lot during this film."

Sandrelli is absolutely fabulous, the movie looks gorgeous, it has amazing music, excellent direction, the episodic nature of the movie perfectly fits with the nature of its protagonist. Beneath all the apparent playfulness of the movie slowly some darkness and bitterness emerge. This gives the movie an emotional punch and makes it much more than just a fun movie about a frisky beautiful girl. It becomes an ode to all women like 'her'.

Breezy but deep at the same time.

The cinematography is interesting, and the film plays out like an episodic and ultimately very bleak companion piece to "La Dolce Vita".

So well and even more

An understated masterpiece, anchored by a truly monumental performance by Stefania Sandrelli and with so many scenes to savour. Watching her steady decline as she begins as a wide-eyed, excitable ingenue, who slowly realises she means nothing other than a plaything or source of amusement to almost everyone she encounters, is one of the most heartbreaking things I've seen on screen. The ending destroyed me.

Sandrelli is stunning, and for a while the film relies heavily on that and great cinematography. But slowly that voyeurism gains complexity as the film becomes a character study and the social and personal commentary gains scathing precision and insight.

This functions more than adequately as a welcome inversion/corrective of La Dolce Vita, but I can also see why it's more of a minor, overlooked gem than some undiscovered masterpiece. For all his strengths as a filmmaker that Pietrangeli displays here, this ultimately feels more like a compendium of familiar '60s art house traits than a work of singular artistic vision. Anyway, the real star here is the stunning Sandrelli, who captivates the same way Karina does in those early Godard films.

watched: 2016, 2019

This is terrific. Dreamy but not dreamlike, bouncy and playful but not quite joyous. Dysphoria never looked so sweet. Effortlessly stylish in that very specific Italian way, and scored entirely by sunny European pop music - which is somehow both a sincere and ironic choice, befitting of the film's careful thematic balance. Stefania Sandrelli is wonderful, and Antonio Pierangeli's direction has a relentless, inventive spark. It's lovely, moving stuff. A very wetwillies movie, if you will.