I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival. This film is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Mario Amura and features a good soundtrack to go with the mood of a monastery but at two hours long you feel like you've just spent tow days in monastery. The backdrop where this was shot is in fact the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore on the Venetian island of San Giorgio. designed by 16th century architect Andrea Palladio and coincidentally the principal character in the film is named Andrea. Andrea (Christo Jivko) is a successful young man who has enjoyed wealth and the finer things in life but has decided is life has no meaning and he becomes a novitiate in a Jesuit monastery. It's novitiate don a preppy kind of look in matching sweaters but their rooms are very traditionally sparse except for the modern appointments of personal computers. The story centers around three novitiates, Andrea, Zanna (Fillipo Timi) and Fausto (Fausto Russo Alesi) as they go through sacrifice, denial, frustration and reflection as they try to attain enlightenment and spirituality and prove to the Father Superior (Andre Henneke) and themselves that they are prepared to become Jesuits. This is based on the 1960 novel Impure Tears-The Perfect Jesuit by Furio Monicelli. Monicelli, himself was a novitiate in the 1950's and his novel deals with his own questions of entering a lifelong service to the faith while dealing with his own homosexuality. The homosexuality aspect of the novel is absent in the screenplay adaptation by writer/director Saverio Costanzo. This film examines the spiritual crisis that each of the tree novitiates is undergoing but we learn little about their backgrounds and their character development and it's really difficult to care about them. Their emptiness, frustration and doubt certainly bubbles to the surface but almost in explosion of silence. The use of a mixture of Italian, German and Bulgarian actors makes for interesting casting but there is little warmth in this cold, long, dull story and I would give it a 5.0 but I can recognize the fact the some may find this a very beautiful and rewarding cinematic experience although I am not one of them.
5 Reviews
A difficult journey
tclark-527 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
There's a moment in this film where the alienated Zanna suggests that, in the great church he shares with a collective of novitiate monks, the silence is empty. It was a clarifying moment for me because it pointed out one of the film's great flaws. Writer and director Costanzo relies heavily on meaningful silences, which in itself would not be a problem - if they were actually meaningful. Many great directors have managed to invest silence with a weight of meaning that makes for compelling viewing. For the majority of this film, though, the silence is unfortunately empty.
A large part of the problem lies in Costanzo's script and direction. He doesn't use the visuals to their full effect. While they convey the austerity and claustrophobia of the monastic setting, they don't help to illuminate the inner lives of the characters (despite the best efforts of the actors). There are a handful of moments when we can understand what Andrea is feeling - such as when his peers finally tell him what they think of him - but all too often, it's impossible to decipher what's going through his mind. This means we're able to grasp the overall arc of his spiritual journey, but it's difficult to get a handle on the nuances of it. The effect is alienating, and suggests that this is a story that may not be best suited to film.
I have little doubt that there will be some audiences who will connect with this movie on a deeply spiritual level. I really hope they do. There are some very valuable questions being asked here: Who are we? What is our purpose? How do we accept ourselves? I'm not sure if the film goes any way to answering these questions, and I don't think it needs to, but it asks them in a protracted and emotionally distant way that, for me, generated more boredom than spiritual examination.
A large part of the problem lies in Costanzo's script and direction. He doesn't use the visuals to their full effect. While they convey the austerity and claustrophobia of the monastic setting, they don't help to illuminate the inner lives of the characters (despite the best efforts of the actors). There are a handful of moments when we can understand what Andrea is feeling - such as when his peers finally tell him what they think of him - but all too often, it's impossible to decipher what's going through his mind. This means we're able to grasp the overall arc of his spiritual journey, but it's difficult to get a handle on the nuances of it. The effect is alienating, and suggests that this is a story that may not be best suited to film.
I have little doubt that there will be some audiences who will connect with this movie on a deeply spiritual level. I really hope they do. There are some very valuable questions being asked here: Who are we? What is our purpose? How do we accept ourselves? I'm not sure if the film goes any way to answering these questions, and I don't think it needs to, but it asks them in a protracted and emotionally distant way that, for me, generated more boredom than spiritual examination.
The elegant corridors of a Jesuit spiritual quest
Chris Knipp14 June 2007
Warning: Spoilers
The world of Saverio Costanzo's In Memory of Me (In memoria di me) is collective, yet interior. This is a beautifully composed, austere film with sparse but significant dialogue. When Andrea (Christo Jivkov) arrives at the big Jesuit monastery (shot entirely at San Giorgio Maggiore near Venice) the Father Superior (Andre Henneke) tells him to report on his fellow novices if they don't measure up. Mutual public criticism is a regular thing. The uniform is sweaters and slacks. Andrea's room on a big corridor is minimal, but he has a laptop; there are few of the medieval accoutrements shown in Philip Groning's documentary about La Grande Chartreuse, Into Great Silence. This is a low-contact culture. People don't even say good morning in the communal bathroom. They stare at each other, but hardly interact.
There are many faces, but only five characters: Andrea, the superior, the head teacher or Father Master (Marco Baliani), and two other novices whose doubts dominate the action. Fausto (Fausto Russo Alesi) stumbles badly when it's his turn to deliver a homily. Andrea spies on him at night, banging his head into a wall and groaning. Later Andrea again spies on Fausto and sees him leaving the monastery at night. At a public criticism session structured by the teacher, various novices give their negative views of Andrea: they think he's vain, arrogant, over-curious, and judgmental. (They haven't observed that by getting to know him personally.) Later, when Andrea presents his homily, he's challenged by the intense, warm Zanna (Filippo Timi). Zanna says what Andrea has written is cold and intellectual: indeed it does seem dry and arrogant, but the phrases are nonetheless striking and well-turned. Andrea defends himself by saying his task as a priest will be to act as an instrument to interpret the Gospel. Zanna retorts that a priest must not analyze, but embody the Gospel, that he must embody love. He sees no love in Andrea.
Now Andrea spies on Zanna, and eventually they have an intense discussion in the chapel. Zanna says this is a cold and loveless place and he feels himself dying in here. This conversation is overheard and reported to the Master Teacher by another novice. Then it's brought up in front of everyone by the Father Superior. Jivkov has a priest-like face, pure and ascetic. In one session the head teacher says they must learn to be impassive, like statues. But it's not certain whether Jivkov's face is saintly or cruel. Eventually like Fausto and Zanna he will have his spiritual crisis, when he will declare, "Non valgo nulla. Non credo in niente" ("I'm worthless.I don't believe in anything"). But the sharp criticisms of Andrea have been balanced by the Father Superior's telling him in private that he's doing very well in his studies, that he's intelligent, that he excels in writing. Whether Andrea will survive the novitiate or not is held in a delicate balance.
Many events and statements are met by Andrea with silence. His own turmoil is interior. When Zanna tells Andrea in the courtyard that he is going to leave, Andrea says nothing and just walks away. Only later he tells Zanna he's going to leave with him.
Partly because of the ambiguity of Zivkov's face, the film is able to be quite subtle in its approach to the obvious lesson that every spiritual path is a struggle. In Memory of Me strikingly dramatizes the fact that a novice may not only come to doubt, but also to doubt his doubts. Hence the ending is suspenseful and despite its apparent contradictions, fulfilling. (One Italian reviewer, Alessandro Izzi, called this a "thriller of the soul"). Some of the scenes as time passes are more symbolic than realistic. Also subtle is the way Costanzo alludes to the possible temptations of homosexuality in this lonely, all-male setting, without any overt scenesthese are temptations, not actions. At first it seems this, or the moral issue of informing on associates, will be the main theme, but it's the spiritual journey that slowly draws all our attention. The title alludes to the fact that dedication to the priestly life means abandonment of the "me," the egoafter the training, it's only a memory. What Costanzo does, he does very well and stylishly. The lack of conventional plot developments, even conventional discussions of Christian doctrine, may leave some viewers feeling unfulfilled. As another Italian commentator, Matteo Mazza, remarked, there are hardly even any references to Jesus.
Saverio Costanzo's first film, Private, set in Palestine, won festival prizes. In this engrossing second film he has used a 1960 novel by Furio Monicelli, The Perfect Jesuit, as the basis for his study of the spiritual struggle experienced by a novice in training. Elegant cinematography (by Mario Amura) alternates austere shots of hallways and chapel with intense close-ups of the men's faces. A clever soundtrack by Alter Ego uses piano concertos and waltzes in surprising ways, and ends with the kyrie from a contemporary Luba mass.
Shown as part of the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema series at Lincoln Center June 2007.
There are many faces, but only five characters: Andrea, the superior, the head teacher or Father Master (Marco Baliani), and two other novices whose doubts dominate the action. Fausto (Fausto Russo Alesi) stumbles badly when it's his turn to deliver a homily. Andrea spies on him at night, banging his head into a wall and groaning. Later Andrea again spies on Fausto and sees him leaving the monastery at night. At a public criticism session structured by the teacher, various novices give their negative views of Andrea: they think he's vain, arrogant, over-curious, and judgmental. (They haven't observed that by getting to know him personally.) Later, when Andrea presents his homily, he's challenged by the intense, warm Zanna (Filippo Timi). Zanna says what Andrea has written is cold and intellectual: indeed it does seem dry and arrogant, but the phrases are nonetheless striking and well-turned. Andrea defends himself by saying his task as a priest will be to act as an instrument to interpret the Gospel. Zanna retorts that a priest must not analyze, but embody the Gospel, that he must embody love. He sees no love in Andrea.
Now Andrea spies on Zanna, and eventually they have an intense discussion in the chapel. Zanna says this is a cold and loveless place and he feels himself dying in here. This conversation is overheard and reported to the Master Teacher by another novice. Then it's brought up in front of everyone by the Father Superior. Jivkov has a priest-like face, pure and ascetic. In one session the head teacher says they must learn to be impassive, like statues. But it's not certain whether Jivkov's face is saintly or cruel. Eventually like Fausto and Zanna he will have his spiritual crisis, when he will declare, "Non valgo nulla. Non credo in niente" ("I'm worthless.I don't believe in anything"). But the sharp criticisms of Andrea have been balanced by the Father Superior's telling him in private that he's doing very well in his studies, that he's intelligent, that he excels in writing. Whether Andrea will survive the novitiate or not is held in a delicate balance.
Many events and statements are met by Andrea with silence. His own turmoil is interior. When Zanna tells Andrea in the courtyard that he is going to leave, Andrea says nothing and just walks away. Only later he tells Zanna he's going to leave with him.
Partly because of the ambiguity of Zivkov's face, the film is able to be quite subtle in its approach to the obvious lesson that every spiritual path is a struggle. In Memory of Me strikingly dramatizes the fact that a novice may not only come to doubt, but also to doubt his doubts. Hence the ending is suspenseful and despite its apparent contradictions, fulfilling. (One Italian reviewer, Alessandro Izzi, called this a "thriller of the soul"). Some of the scenes as time passes are more symbolic than realistic. Also subtle is the way Costanzo alludes to the possible temptations of homosexuality in this lonely, all-male setting, without any overt scenesthese are temptations, not actions. At first it seems this, or the moral issue of informing on associates, will be the main theme, but it's the spiritual journey that slowly draws all our attention. The title alludes to the fact that dedication to the priestly life means abandonment of the "me," the egoafter the training, it's only a memory. What Costanzo does, he does very well and stylishly. The lack of conventional plot developments, even conventional discussions of Christian doctrine, may leave some viewers feeling unfulfilled. As another Italian commentator, Matteo Mazza, remarked, there are hardly even any references to Jesus.
Saverio Costanzo's first film, Private, set in Palestine, won festival prizes. In this engrossing second film he has used a 1960 novel by Furio Monicelli, The Perfect Jesuit, as the basis for his study of the spiritual struggle experienced by a novice in training. Elegant cinematography (by Mario Amura) alternates austere shots of hallways and chapel with intense close-ups of the men's faces. A clever soundtrack by Alter Ego uses piano concertos and waltzes in surprising ways, and ends with the kyrie from a contemporary Luba mass.
Shown as part of the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema series at Lincoln Center June 2007.
Film not detached or cerebral
c-papoulias31 October 2007
Warning: Spoilers
I think the account of this film through the first reviewer is well observed and extremely sensitive
However, I completely disagree with the other reviewer's (t-clark5) observation that the visuals do not translate the inner struggle and that the homoerotic element is just incidental. (I will not talk about the homoerotic element here at any length - see my forum comments for more). Zanna is clearly devastated by Fausto's departure, and there are several sequences of the two men sneaking into each other's rooms at night. However, this does not simply mean that they are 'gay' in any straightforward way. Zanna talks passionately about discovering Jesus through the love of a man but we are not clear about the physicality of that love until his final gesture with the father Superior - and not even then!
Also, the film's refusal to portray inner turmoil explicitly through facial gestures, talk etc is, I think, its great strength. Cinema has long accustomed us to reading characterisation through facial expression and one of the strengths of this film is that it refuses this.
The novices are told that they should be like statues, impassive, but fully registering the pain of the world within themselves. They are also given particular exercises to meditate upon, and these exercises (as is the practice of Jesuits) are about putting oneself in a moment of Jesus' passion and experiencing every sensual detail of it. So when Andrea is confronted with the 'vision' in the corridor towards the end, this is like a gruesome coming to life of these very same meditations for him. Except the 'vision' is a real man and not a hallucination and so Andrea has to live with the consequences of that act of witnessing, hence his magnificent outbreak "Non valgo nulla. Non credo in niente".
The shots of the man in the corridor advancing towards Andrea, with their out of focus saturated intensity are surely some of the most relentless and sublime shots committed to film. The audience cannot see what exactly is happening, but we see that what is happening is meant to be completely hideous, each viewer's worst private nightmare, but on a completely different level from the conventions of horror films. In the film's narrative, this is the moment of conversion into faith, a conversion that I think works, partly because viewers are left to fill the blurriness with their own private horrors, and partly because this filling in, is fully in accordance to the Jesuit meditation principles of novices becoming able to imagine themselves as spectators in the passion of Jesus with all their senses - and the film underlines the sense of smell and sight here.
So, the film is an extraordinary journey, and a demonstration of conversion in the Christian sense. And here. conversion is communicated as a moment of horror and splendour both, a saturation of existence with burning love (the colours become fiery and saturated as the figure in the corridor advances).
The director apparently had his actors observe rituals of Jesuit meditation while shooting this film. While this does not really tell us much about the film's execution as a film, it does suggest that there is an important and intrinsic relationship between religion (actually, Christianity) and the medium of cinema. Christianity is a profoundly visual culture and the cinema can and has (cf Gibson) served as its twenty-first century church. What In Memoria di Me offers, I think, is a way of experiencing conversion and grace in Christianity which is fully at odds with Mel Gibson's movie. In these times, this a salutary vision.
However, I completely disagree with the other reviewer's (t-clark5) observation that the visuals do not translate the inner struggle and that the homoerotic element is just incidental. (I will not talk about the homoerotic element here at any length - see my forum comments for more). Zanna is clearly devastated by Fausto's departure, and there are several sequences of the two men sneaking into each other's rooms at night. However, this does not simply mean that they are 'gay' in any straightforward way. Zanna talks passionately about discovering Jesus through the love of a man but we are not clear about the physicality of that love until his final gesture with the father Superior - and not even then!
Also, the film's refusal to portray inner turmoil explicitly through facial gestures, talk etc is, I think, its great strength. Cinema has long accustomed us to reading characterisation through facial expression and one of the strengths of this film is that it refuses this.
The novices are told that they should be like statues, impassive, but fully registering the pain of the world within themselves. They are also given particular exercises to meditate upon, and these exercises (as is the practice of Jesuits) are about putting oneself in a moment of Jesus' passion and experiencing every sensual detail of it. So when Andrea is confronted with the 'vision' in the corridor towards the end, this is like a gruesome coming to life of these very same meditations for him. Except the 'vision' is a real man and not a hallucination and so Andrea has to live with the consequences of that act of witnessing, hence his magnificent outbreak "Non valgo nulla. Non credo in niente".
The shots of the man in the corridor advancing towards Andrea, with their out of focus saturated intensity are surely some of the most relentless and sublime shots committed to film. The audience cannot see what exactly is happening, but we see that what is happening is meant to be completely hideous, each viewer's worst private nightmare, but on a completely different level from the conventions of horror films. In the film's narrative, this is the moment of conversion into faith, a conversion that I think works, partly because viewers are left to fill the blurriness with their own private horrors, and partly because this filling in, is fully in accordance to the Jesuit meditation principles of novices becoming able to imagine themselves as spectators in the passion of Jesus with all their senses - and the film underlines the sense of smell and sight here.
So, the film is an extraordinary journey, and a demonstration of conversion in the Christian sense. And here. conversion is communicated as a moment of horror and splendour both, a saturation of existence with burning love (the colours become fiery and saturated as the figure in the corridor advances).
The director apparently had his actors observe rituals of Jesuit meditation while shooting this film. While this does not really tell us much about the film's execution as a film, it does suggest that there is an important and intrinsic relationship between religion (actually, Christianity) and the medium of cinema. Christianity is a profoundly visual culture and the cinema can and has (cf Gibson) served as its twenty-first century church. What In Memoria di Me offers, I think, is a way of experiencing conversion and grace in Christianity which is fully at odds with Mel Gibson's movie. In these times, this a salutary vision.
A beautiful rewarding film
stonedsloth5 February 2008
Warning: Spoilers
The other night I watched the Italian film In Memoria di Me, which is directed by Saverio Constanza and based on the 1960's novel Impure Tears The perfect Jesuit by Furio Monicelli. It was one of the strangest and most affecting films I have seen, filmed entirely at Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore on the Venetian island of San Giorgio, which for me made it visually engrossing from the outset. The architect who designed the Jesuit monastery in the 16th century was called Andrea Palladio, and the protagonist symbolically shares his name. The young Andrea, is a wealthy and handsome man, who has decided to renounce earthly pleasures for the pursuit of spiritual fulfilment in a harsh and austere Jesuit monastery. He is also given the further duty of having to spy on his fellow novitiates which creates a sinister tension in the film.
The wonderful cinematography simultaneously gives the impression of great space and intense claustrophobia, as it contrasts the vast ornate halls with the cramped and sparse cell that Andrea inhabits, his only connection to the modern world a laptop he uses to compose homilies. The island location heightens the sense of separation from the outside world, of being even outside of time that the viewer is also a part of. This separation is illustrated poignantly in two particular scenes. The first is when a large ship on the laguna passes the vast window at the end of the dormitory, giving the illusion that the monastery is moving, when actually it has gone nowhere, for hundreds of years. The second is one of the best pieces of cinema I have ever seen; one night Andrea is woken up by the sound of explosions as he walks over down the dormitory it becomes apparent that there is an enormous fireworks display outside, the colours reflected in the marble floor. The novitiates silently gather at the window and we see them looking from within at the festivities outside, and then to contrast our freedom with theirs, we see the fireworks display as they would appear to those watching at the annual Venice Carnival. The image of those young men watching fireworks from within a monastery is utterly unforgettable.
This is a film, that took a long time to sink in and the more I return to thinking about it the more pleasure I gain from having watched it. The atmosphere in particular is powerful with the soundtrack of ethereal choral music an appropriate accompaniment to the visual beauty of the setting. Just the idea of standing alone in a sixteenth century Basilica and listening to this sublime music, as if it channelled directly from the heaven into the Duomo, was almost too beautiful to bear. I have a strong personal connection to Italy, and although I am agnostic, the more I see of this country and its history, the more I understand the historically irresistible pull of the Catholic religion and its intoxicatingly powerful artistic representations of the faith. Is it possible to though to fully comprehend these aspects of religion, without actually believing? Are these moments of artistic revelation worth the self-sacrifice and adherence to outdated, patriarchal values? I find the Catholic Church as an institution troublesome, its stance on contraception, abortion, homosexuality and women's rights dangerously influential in inhibiting progress in the developed world as many young people in Italy also do. This film needed to be made though, because there is a crisis of faith in the Catholic Church with fewer and fewer novitiates entering monasteries every year, so it is a world that may no longer exist in the near future. Though it shows the sinister underside to the monastery, I think it is careful to be as neutral as possible in giving the viewer so much time and space to decide what they think for themselves. As unremarkable as the austere, all male environment is to many, for me it was fascinating to see what happens behind those iron doors. And the answer is simultaneously far less and far more than I could ever have expected.
My review originally appeared on http://inquirelive.co.uk/node/141
The wonderful cinematography simultaneously gives the impression of great space and intense claustrophobia, as it contrasts the vast ornate halls with the cramped and sparse cell that Andrea inhabits, his only connection to the modern world a laptop he uses to compose homilies. The island location heightens the sense of separation from the outside world, of being even outside of time that the viewer is also a part of. This separation is illustrated poignantly in two particular scenes. The first is when a large ship on the laguna passes the vast window at the end of the dormitory, giving the illusion that the monastery is moving, when actually it has gone nowhere, for hundreds of years. The second is one of the best pieces of cinema I have ever seen; one night Andrea is woken up by the sound of explosions as he walks over down the dormitory it becomes apparent that there is an enormous fireworks display outside, the colours reflected in the marble floor. The novitiates silently gather at the window and we see them looking from within at the festivities outside, and then to contrast our freedom with theirs, we see the fireworks display as they would appear to those watching at the annual Venice Carnival. The image of those young men watching fireworks from within a monastery is utterly unforgettable.
This is a film, that took a long time to sink in and the more I return to thinking about it the more pleasure I gain from having watched it. The atmosphere in particular is powerful with the soundtrack of ethereal choral music an appropriate accompaniment to the visual beauty of the setting. Just the idea of standing alone in a sixteenth century Basilica and listening to this sublime music, as if it channelled directly from the heaven into the Duomo, was almost too beautiful to bear. I have a strong personal connection to Italy, and although I am agnostic, the more I see of this country and its history, the more I understand the historically irresistible pull of the Catholic religion and its intoxicatingly powerful artistic representations of the faith. Is it possible to though to fully comprehend these aspects of religion, without actually believing? Are these moments of artistic revelation worth the self-sacrifice and adherence to outdated, patriarchal values? I find the Catholic Church as an institution troublesome, its stance on contraception, abortion, homosexuality and women's rights dangerously influential in inhibiting progress in the developed world as many young people in Italy also do. This film needed to be made though, because there is a crisis of faith in the Catholic Church with fewer and fewer novitiates entering monasteries every year, so it is a world that may no longer exist in the near future. Though it shows the sinister underside to the monastery, I think it is careful to be as neutral as possible in giving the viewer so much time and space to decide what they think for themselves. As unremarkable as the austere, all male environment is to many, for me it was fascinating to see what happens behind those iron doors. And the answer is simultaneously far less and far more than I could ever have expected.
My review originally appeared on http://inquirelive.co.uk/node/141
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