The Eyes, the Mouth (1982) User Reviews

Meatless attempt by Bellochio to regain past splendour.

[rsoonsa · 3/10 · 15 August 2003]

The normally high quality of director Marco Bellochio's body of work assailing the Italian bourgeoisie is compromised by this disordered affair that is marked by what is perhaps his least inventive efforts, particularly as they concern the screenplay and the soundtrack. Bellochio's first feature, I PUGNI IN TASCA (Fist in the Pocket), from 1965, established him in the forefront of Italy's Neo-Realism school of cinema, but his attempt to emulate its success by utilizing his original leading player, Lou Castel, and theme: a man reluctantly returning to the family which he has discarded, fail to yield a satisfactory result. Castel plays twin brothers (Pippo/Giovanni), the former of whom has committed suicide, apparently due to his failure at love with his pregnant fiancée Vanda (Angela Molina), and when Giovanni becomes in turn her lover, he finds himself in a position of serving his family's immediate purpose: to shield his highly religious mother (Emmanuelle Riva) from knowledge of the sinful cause of Pippo's death. Despite Castel's rather outrageous essay to depict Giovanni's inner turbulence, the film suffers from an emotionally removed composition throughout, certainly not helped by inferior sound quality and a decision to give several major roles over to dubbing undeftly from original Spanish and French into Italian. There are several citations to PUGNI, even an instance in a theatre wherein a lengthy and important scene from that film is shown, all conducive to a bothersome perception that Bellochio is developing a vanity piece here, one signally lacking in originality. On occasion, a glimpse is to be found of Bellochio's wonted strengths, including his emphasis upon the language of bodily movement, but his attempt to unite his customary theme of socio-economic inequality with a form of magic realism brings forth an enervated and oft incoherent production.

Cinema as Life Going On

[giulipp · 8/10 · 30 May 2006]

Marco Bellocchio's "Gli occhi, la bocca" is not an attempt to remake "I pugni in tasca" (1965), nor an essay born out of the vanity of self-quoting. It's true that the leading player (Lou Castel) is the same of the previous film, and that "I pugni in tasca" is quoted and even shown at one point (where we can see - from an oblique screen - the scene of Lou's mother assassination in black and white); but this is only because Giovanni, the character played by Lou Castel in THIS movie, is an actor and perhaps the same one who appeared in "I pugni" back in '65. What concerns Bellocchio here, aside from family problems and bourgeois maladjustment, is the question of the running of time. Castel says: "Time flows, we're always the same", and nothing changes. How are we to accustom to the problem of life's length? We're usually driven by popular wisdom to say that life is too short, but what if it were, in fact, too LONG? The only solution to this would be suicide, and in fact Giovanni's brother, Pippo, shots himself just before the film starts. How would Giovanni react to the tragedy, and Bellocchio with him? A reflection about the "entire lifespan" which separates "I pugni in tasca" from "Gli occhi, la bocca" is in order, and those seventeen years become the symbol of the entire problem of time and our maladjustment in it. Well worth watching and watching again, "Gli occhi, la bocca" gains more strength with the passing of years because this is one of its main issues. Now that we are in 2006, "I pugni in tasca" is forty-one years behind us and there's more than one reason to shudder. The only rejuvenating cure cure, then, is watching the new Marco Bellocchio's masterpiece, "Il regista di matrimoni" (The Weddings' Director, out now in Italy). The new film shows that, if Giovanni has hopelessly aged as perhaps WE have, Marco Bellocchio has not -- like Pippo, who in "Gli occhi, la bocca" refused to grow old.

"The eyes, the mouth" and the rest of this movie stink.

[davidtraversa-1 · 1/10 · 13 December 2008]

I will not make much of a review since the other comment by Rsoonsa makes a splendid dissection of this terrible movie. I just saw it --although it was produced in 1982-- just because Angela Molina was in it, but I don't know if it was due to bad photography or just the inevitableness of time going by, that even this far back (1982) she doesn't look at her best, (an euphemism to be kind to her).

The guy is simply horrid (another euphemism), so among the two of them made the watching of this movie quite depressing. But all the other actors contributed, with a vengeance, to this general impression.

A coursed movie, obviously. From beginning to end. A child frightener of a movie.

Who knows why everybody was so unspeakably bad. The catering was less than good? The salaries were too low? Everybody had another job appointment more important than this one and they where itching to go?

Nobody will ever know.

And since the movie is from 1982 probably most of the cast is dead by now or in some elderly home, asking their visiting younger relatives: And who are you my Dear?

Well, thank you Rsoonsa so much for such an excellent commentary. And now I leave you all because I'm rushing to the back yard to burn my copy of "Gli occhi, la bocca".

I do not want to be responsible for future generations going through the torture of watching this movie by any chance as long as I can prevent it.

A bereaved mother but an enlightened son

[XxEthanHuntxX · 9/10 · 27 November 2021]

I think its safe to say that this movie shrieks for Individualism and emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Assailing against the social norm about cohesiveness among individuals and prioritization of the group, or family, over the self. Also rebelling against materialism, where one consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.

An affectionate play of two humans: Lou Castel and Angela Molina seized in a beauteous endearment, which only allures one's fondness further more by the minute. The principal message really shine's through brightly and with full of delight. Even so, before the demonstration of this magical spectacle, the story is a bit hard to grasp, looking very odd and one were utterly confused about were exactly the director's attention had gone.