• About
  • Masthead
    • Editorial Board
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
The Wellesley News -
  • News
    • No image
      Performance at Punch’s Alley prompts confusion, safety concerns
    • No image
      UniLAd plans to support the local teacher union
    • No image
      Survey results reveal need for mental health support at colleges
    • News in Brief
    • Senate Report
  • Features
    • EnAct and YDSA hold crochet-in for climate action
      EnAct and YDSA hold crochet-in for climate action
    • Professor Cindy Ok Awarded Yale Younger Poets Prize
      Professor Cindy Ok Awarded Yale Younger Poets Prize
    • Trans non-binary runner talks about activism in running
      Trans non-binary runner talks about activism in running
    • Alumnae Spotlight
    • Faculty Focus
  • Opinions
    • It’s hard to not love ChatGPT
      It’s hard to not love ChatGPT
    • Under the “friendly” and “earthy” facade, Trader Joe’s hides unethical practices
      Under the “friendly” and “earthy” facade, Trader Joe’s hides unethical practices
    • Job insecurity for student workers has complex consequences
      Job insecurity for student workers has complex consequences
    • Staff Editorial
    • Letters to the Editor
  • Arts
    • Rio Romeo releases single “Over & Over”
      Rio Romeo releases single “Over & Over”
    • Dolly Parton confirms “Rock Star” collaborations
      Dolly Parton confirms “Rock Star” collaborations
    • MFA opens visiting exhibit “Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence”
      MFA opens visiting exhibit “Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence”
    • Books Before Boys
  • Sports and Wellness
    • No image
      What even is a BORG and why does it matter?
    • Indoor Track & Field Team Prepares for Outdoors
      Indoor Track & Field Team Prepares for Outdoors
    • What even are BORGs and why do they matter?
      What even are BORGs and why do they matter?
    • Athlete of the Month
  • The Wellesley Snooze
    • Top ten times feminism led us astray
      Top ten times feminism led us astray
    • Song Victims
      Song Victims
    • How to: Prep your Preschooler for the College Application Process
      How to: Prep your Preschooler for the College Application Process
By Alice Ascoli Arts, Lousy Realities, ReviewsFebruary 9, 2022

Lousy Realities: a new film column

Il cinema non serve a niente, però ti distrae dalla realtà. La realtà è scadente. – The Hand of God (2021), Paolo Sorrentino 

It’s 1984. Two brothers — Fabietto and Marchino — are wandering, almost aimlessly, through Naples’ serpentine roads. In just moments, Marchino will pronounce a sentence that, while initially  incomprehensible to young Fabietto, will return to him years later with a newfound force, a force that carries the taste of trauma, of loss and, at the same time, of epiphany: “cinema is useless, but it can distract you from reality… reality is lousy.”  

When I heard those precise words from the theater’s audio system, I was watching the 8:30 a.m.  screening of Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” at the Venice Film Festival — in and of itself a dream that had, due to a series of yet unexplainable coincidences, somehow materialized — and I felt as though I had been stripped naked. Marchino was talking to Fabietto, of course, but he was also talking to me. And, most likely, to everyone else in the theater. Marchino was exposing me. Marchino was exposing the sense of perpetual disorientation that has accompanied me for as long as I can remember; the desire to seek order and meaning and definition to the unclean margins of life, and, for many of us, the source of our soothing from, as Sorrentino himself would say, “the unease of existing in the world” — that is, cinema. 

Which brings me here. I’m Alice. Almost nine years ago, I moved to Boston from my native Rome.  I’ve lived between the two cities ever since (if we choose to ignore the two years my family and I  spent in Las Vegas … but that’s a whole other story) with all the psychological effects and identity  

crises that an adolescence divided into two (or three) could bring and that, surely, almost all  Wellesley students feel or have come to feel themselves. I guess you could call this a film column,  a column about film, a column about international film or a column written by a confused  Biochemistry major and English minor that is currently studying abroad in England with a career deviating obsession with film, or, ultimately, anything you’d like. Whatever you may choose, you’ll  find it in every edition of The Wellesley News and it’ll cover all ages of international cinema, from  classics to the very latest projects. 

For now, I thought I’d call the column “Lousy Realities,” a title which, I believe, requires no further  explanation. To return to Sorrentino, non vi disunite. “Don’t come undone.” 

Tags

FilmHand of GodItalian Film

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articlePortrait of the Artist and the Audience in Anna Marie Tendler’s “Rooms in the First House”
Next articleThe WWII Little Women retelling that made me cry the whole way through (Books Before Boys review)

You may also like

Rio Romeo releases single “Over & Over”

Dolly Parton confirms “Rock Star” collaborations

MFA opens visiting exhibit “Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

COPYRIGHT © 2023 THE WELLESLEY NEWS
Back to top