The priest's wife

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Movie
German title The priest's wife
Original title La moglie del prete
Country of production Italy , France
original language Italian
Publishing year 1970
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Dino Risi
script Ruggero Maccari
Bernardino Zapponi
Dino Risi
production Carlo Ponti
music Armando Trovajoli
camera Alfio Contini
cut Alberto Gallitti
occupation

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni play the leading roles in the Italian feature film The Priest's Wife (original title: La moglie del prete ) from 1970 . The tragicomic Commedia all'italiana was directed by Dino Risi . It originated in the same year that divorce was allowed in Italy and targets the celibacy of priests in the Catholic Church.

action

For four years the young Valeria from Padua was devoted to a man until she found out that he was married. In a furious fit of anger, she demolishes his car. At home, she has a whole box of sleeping pills ready to take and calls the number of a helpline that she accidentally discovers. The helper on the other end of the line is the Catholic priest Don Mario. He can't stop her from attempting suicide, but when she wakes up in the hospital the next day, barely rescued, she calls him. During his visit, she falls in love with him.

Now she is constantly looking to be close to Mario, who is uncomfortable in public with the courtship by the provocatively dressed woman. The celibacy forbids him. After he has also clearly developed feelings for her, he sneaks away from a meal together. She looks for him in his "hiding place" in a seminary, where they exchange a kiss. Mario overcomes his indecision, they become a couple. Valeria's parents have mixed feelings about the facts. Mario places his hopes on a reform of the church and applies for a dispensation in order to be able to marry Valeria despite being a priest. Their joy is severely dampened when Mario wants to introduce his fiancée to his poor family: the mother, who has put all her efforts into making her son become a priest and who was proud of it, no longer wants to see him. Mario is summoned to Rome for his request, and after a while he calls Valeria. When she arrived in Rome, she discovered that he had been promoted to monsignor and had been entrusted with important tasks, had established himself in Rome and found nothing to be able to delay the Church regarding his request. She does not tell him that she is expecting a child from him.

Reviews

The film magazine Positif rejoiced that the Commedia all'italiana was continuing its existence with this film. The work eludes the two areas in which a talkative journalism wanted to locate it, and to which the audience had pushed the film: the painful celibacy problem and the mere comedic number. The scenario is funny, Risi has narrative talent and the film is more than just a series of well-played skits; on a higher level of meaning he presented the power structures within the church. Sophia Loren is playfully able to make people forget that she is quite old for the role, and she is proving to be a good actress. Her bullfighting rhythm seems like a personal revenge from her and her partner, the producer Carlo Ponti, against the ban on divorce.

In the German reviews, there was little understanding of Risi's tragicomic approach. Der Spiegel insinuated that Risi did not know what he actually wanted and was uncertainly wavering between comedy, satire, melodrama and tragedy in a “film mishmash”. He played down the topic and the two actors acted bland. Similarly, the critics , which have entered the lexicon of international films , found the film “too little amusing” for a comedy and “too superficial” for a contribution to the celibacy discussion. Hans Greve from the film criticism was surprised "about Dino Risi's old-fashioned neat clothing style, which - by an almost enigmatic plan Abbildlichkeit - somehow intangible, completely anmutet 'as Italian Photo novels ." The film was "harmless smooth, plaster-behaved imaged" and the lack of pace boring. And “this is how the carousel turns in the popular Italian way; just about the old motif: how - ultimately - everything turns in circles; or: how one - with concessions - leaves everything as it is; or: how to - almost faithfully - remain the most faithful ”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gérard Legrand: La «commedia» continue . In: Positif , June 1971, p. 74
  2. ↑ Der Spiegel , No. 16/1971 of April 12, 1971: Listige Mutter
  3. ^ Lexicon of International Films. Volume D-F. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995. ISBN 3-499-16357-8
  4. ↑ Hans Greve: The priest's wife . In: Filmkritik , May 1971, pp. 269–270