La Luna (film)

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Movie
German title La Luna
Original title La Luna
Country of production Italy
original language English , Italian
Publishing year 1979
length 142 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Bernardo Bertolucci
script Giuseppe Bertolucci
Clare Peploe
Bernardo Bertolucci
production Giovanni Bertolucci
music Ennio Morricone
Giuseppe Verdi
camera Vittorio Storaro
cut Gabriella Cristiani
occupation

La Luna is an Italian feature film from 1979. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci , who used the melodramatic structure of Giuseppe Verdi's operas as a model for this film .

action

After the sudden death of her husband Douglas, Caterina, a successful opera singer from New York , moves to Italy with her son Joe, where she once studied singing. She reached the peak of her career in Rome , but 15-year-old Joe felt lonely and abandoned. He succumbs to heroin consumption and goes on forays into hidden parts of the Eternal City. Caterina slowly realizes that she doesn't know anything about her son. She gets into a crisis that calls into question her previous self-image as a mother and artist. After a conversation with Joe's friend and drug dealer Mustafa, Caterina's behavior changes: She seduces Joe and cultivates an incestuous mother-son relationship on a trip to Parma and the surrounding area . She casually remembers her first kiss - years ago with an Italian. Joe learns for the first time from his birth father Giuseppe, who is a teacher and still lives on the coast with his mother. He visits him and hopes to reunite his parents. Giuseppe actually appears at Caterina's rehearsals for the Verdi opera A Masked Ball in the Caracalla Baths . Whether the parents are reconciled and Joe is finally cured of the drug remains to be seen - but at least the emptiness in his heart seems to be overcome and he could finally grow up.

criticism

“A film located between Verdi and Freud that seeks to expose the decadence of the bourgeoisie beneath the smooth surface. Excellent in staging and camera work. The sophistication of the film lies in the constant change of the levels of theater and reality. "

“Director Bertolucci has dealt with his own fears with the shockingly intense soul gaze. A stirring roller coaster of emotions. "

background

The moon (ital. Luna ) has two sides: one is visible, the other remains hidden. The same goes for the two main characters in the film, mother and son. Already in his early childhood, Caterina cycled with Joe in a basket in the moonlight along the Italian sea. He always assumed he was born and raised in Brooklyn . Only at the end of the story does he find out that he is of Italian descent. His mother has left his father Giuseppe because he was secretly involved in an incestuous relationship with his mother.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. La Luna. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used