Photo: Sergio Castellitto as Ernesto in Marco Bellocchio's My Mother's Smile
In Marco Bellocchio's My Mother's Smile, painter and proud atheist Ernesto (Sergio Castellitto) learns that the Vatican hopes to canonize his mother, murdered years earlier by his mentally-ill brother. While it has courted controversy in its native Italy, My Mother's Smile is at once a subtle observation of religious hypocrisy and an indictment of its main character's moral uncertainty. Bellocchio is profoundly fascinated with the cultural rifts between generations and the amount of deceit it requires for the dead to become saints. Curiously, Ernesto may be the film's true monster; indeed, his hatred for his mother is both heartbreaking and strangely ironic (he loathed her because of her simplicity and moral complacency). The man's strange experiences (a commercial photo op, a surreal religious gathering) bring to mind Tom Cruise's road to fidelity in Eyes Wide Shut, but set to Italian opera. Bellocchio has a way of spelling everything out for the audience; nonetheless, the film's intelligence is provocative and playful.
In Marco Bellocchio's My Mother's Smile, painter and proud atheist Ernesto (Sergio Castellitto) learns that the Vatican hopes to canonize his mother, murdered years earlier by his mentally-ill brother. While it has courted controversy in its native Italy, My Mother's Smile is at once a subtle observation of religious hypocrisy and an indictment of its main character's moral uncertainty. Bellocchio is profoundly fascinated with the cultural rifts between generations and the amount of deceit it requires for the dead to become saints. Curiously, Ernesto may be the film's true monster; indeed, his hatred for his mother is both heartbreaking and strangely ironic (he loathed her because of her simplicity and moral complacency). The man's strange experiences (a commercial photo op, a surreal religious gathering) bring to mind Tom Cruise's road to fidelity in Eyes Wide Shut, but set to Italian opera. Bellocchio has a way of spelling everything out for the audience; nonetheless, the film's intelligence is provocative and playful.
