La Sapienza (2014) User Reviews

Beautiful

[framptonhollis · 8/10 · 23 August 2015]

People will call it pretentious, boring, and pointless. Of course they will. Of course. I fully understand this. The film is clearly not for everyone, but I loved it! The stunning imagery of architecture is breathtaking, it really is!

The stunning imagery had sold me to this film right away, but the rest of the film is great, as well. Although the film is very light on plot, the dialogue is quite interesting and intelligent (even though it isn't particularly realistic and natural). The characters talk and talk about their pasts, their lives, and their professions. The film went by very quickly, and felt shorter than it's 104 minute running time.

Overall, this is one of the best films of 2015 so far, by far.

Eugène Green's stilted pretensions?

[janjira-31277 · 8/10 · 12 March 2016]

Extremely different reactions to "La Sapienza" reflect differences in temperament. Negative criticism tends to remark the film's arty pretension, lack of plot, and pointlessness. It is easy to see why someone might react in this way, because Eugene Green's movies are different from everything else on offer, including so-called art-house films. To say that his characters do not talk as real people talk is exactly right, given that Green's characters speak in the declamatory Baroque style, a style which he has been teaching these past forty years. This mode of speech is so far removed from our daily discourse that it sounds like it comes from Mars. And that's the intention. It forces one to pay attention. It takes time and patience to get used to such talk, but after a little, the unusual diction begins to make sense: it fits Green's symmetrical compositions of objects in space and the stillness that permeates all his films.

As to pretentiousness, no. Green is, if anything, modest in his insistence that there is another way, albeit one that appears wildly impractical in our materialistic present. True, his characters incarnate types that reflect ideas which he has been developing, especially since 2001, in print and on film. True, to embody an idea is to be a bit odd. Certainly this approach takes us off the beaten track. However, for those of a particular temperament, that's all to the good.

It is not the fault of an English-speaking audience, when they are unfamiliar with Green's ideas. He writes in French, as did Julian Green and Samuel Beckett. However, unlike these latter two, his books have yet to be translated from French into English.

Meanwhile, Green's movies aim for evocation. There are no car chases, no shootouts, no femme fatales, no sound-bite dialogues, no CGI, no enhanced sounds, all of which can be entertaining. Instead, there is a universe of the imagination and a particular sensibility that would have us put down our smart phones for a long moment, take a deep breath, look around, and 'regard' (recall that this word comes from French and there lies its meaning) the person sitting across from us. That is to say, to be in the moment, not becoming, but being. After all, 'becoming' will take care of itself. Being, on the other hand, is sometimes missed altogether.

Valid insights but too stilted and robotic for its own good.

[Sergeant_Tibbs · 7/10 · 8 November 2014]

A middle aged architect and his disinterested wife take a break from their work and travel to Italy to reconnect with each other and their passions. They stumble upon an ambitious brother and sister, then respectively pair off and discovers what the young have to teach them. It studies the pain of the distance between past and present as they are the same age as their children would be. Eugene Green's idiosyncratic style immediately reminds you of the chilliness of Jacques Tati and the formalities of Wes Anderson. The characters don't exchange looks and move very rigidly, like some kind of concept theatre. They talk directly to the camera, avoiding each other. It aptly shows the disconnect they feel, but at the expense of an incredibly stilted film. Unfortunately, and while it tries for satire and wry humour with the bloated egos of its characters, the film doesn't really facilitate the joke. It could've benefited from a soundtrack rather than silence to lighten the mood.

While the characters and the film are quite pompous in their conquest; their desires, relationships and conflicts do feel organically realised in the script. The film is a robotic essay about humanity, passion, religion and happiness, full of exposition as opposed to drama. That said, it's still very interesting. It argues the purpose of grand architecture – how it's a space to be free, a space for light to enter, and that light facilitates knowledge. It's an argument between the wisdom of youth and wisdom of experience, though obvious results. With a film about an architect, you can expect great production design and it does deliver, complimented with detailed costume design, captured with its appropriately bright cinematography. But with its plodding pace, ego, and lack of emotional resonance outside of tragic revelations, it's a difficult film to feel satisfied with, though it harbours valid insights.

7/10

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Light and lyrical--perfect for cinephiles and those loving love.

[JohnDeSando · 18 June 2015]

Love is difficult enough in any language and art form, so layer a French film in a Swiss-Italian setting (Ticino is in southern Switzerland) with an architecture motif, and you have an insight into what makes it all work—light. La Sapienza will indeed make you wise if it doesn't confound you with its arty dialogue.

Most of the screenplay is poignantly presented with slow theatricality, sometimes as if the characters were in a documentary talking directly into the camera. But American-French writer-director Eugene Green brings powerful emotions out of his four principals even when they speak without an ounce of naturalism. Love is in the words aided by the light.

The middle-aged architect, Alexandre (Fabrizio Rongione) is visiting Ticino to study the work of 17th century Baroque architect Francesco Borromini and to be inspired. The charming Bernini would have been a better inspiration than the melancholic Borromini, but, hey, our architect captures a good vibe no matter.

His wife, Alienore (Christelle Prot), a group psychoanalyst, loves the introverted scholar even dispelling the overtures of a very young architect, Goffredo (Ludovico Succio), the purveyor of the light philosophy to her and her husband. Completing the foursome is Goffredo's pre-Raphaelite-like sister, Lavinia (Arianna Nastro), who gives Alienore more strength to love and live than she already has.

Architecture becomes more than enveloping space as it provides the angle of light to incite true love. Unsurprisingly, the loving brother and sister (close to too loving) have much to teach about the purity of love and the love of architecture. La Sapienza is a moving tone poem, albeit eccentric in dialogue and light on conflict.

In contrast with Noah Baumbach's comedy, While We're Young, which has a younger couple confounding the adults, La Sapienza is witty and accessible, entertaining and underplayed. A wise summer choice in a spectacular but droll European setting. Light even if it sounds heavy under my keystrokes.

It was about to be special

[beatrizea · 6/10 · 12 March 2019]

... but at the end it let me cold according to the initial aesthetic and methaphoric espectatives.

La Sapienza

[marysuelyons-964-971982 · 9/10 · 9 June 2015]

This is an excellent film. I look forward to seeing it a second time as there is so much to absorb/think about. What is unique is that the director chose to not develop the plot in a traditional manner. It is somewhat of a cross between a drama and a documentary. The present day characters serve to help us understand what the director wants to convey. The rogerebert.com review and an article and review on the New York Times site are useful to read before watching the film.

La Sapienza is a film about having knowledge about the past and the present, about people and relationships, and places to achieve a better, satisfying life. It is not accident that it is about knowledge as the Italian word Sapienza derives from the Italian verb sapere, to know.

Just Dreadful

[GeneSiskel · 1/10 · 5 July 2015]

How this picture earned 89 on the Rotten Tomatoes scale, I will never know. Except for some routine tourist videos of Italy, there is nothing to recommend here. The characters are stand-ins for ideas. The parts are not so much acted as spoken. The actors are leaden except when they are smiling, which they rarely do, and then they are leaden and smiling. There is a ton of clap-trap dialogue about light, rooms, specters, sacrifice, becoming an opposite, and the like. Death plays a part.

I gather that architecture is a metaphor here for film making. An architect's room is a director's camera ("camera" is the Italian word for "room," of course). Light enters both. The architect protagonist's musings about Borromini and Bellini, and the like, are stand-ins for the director's musings about making movies. I am afraid that none of this worked for me. The movie failed to engage, much less to enlighten.

A French architect resolves his inner conflict on a tour of Italian Cathedrals

[blaine3-2 · 10/10 · 24 August 2015]

Slight Spoiler This film is for all lovers of art house Foreign films But even those might find it challenging. The exposition is unnatural and stilted deliberately. The Director is a French born American citizen. He uses the classical Baroque conventions and conceit of 17th century French theater, think Moliere for example in which characters do not always talk to each other but to the audience and they do not interrupt each other. This way the director conveys his thoughts and philosophy to the audience. At first I was puzzled by this, I do know of Shakespeare's "asides" to the audience (which many Americans are familiar with) so that is something we can relate to, but this was different and extreme. Then I realized that it was a theatrical convention of the director.

American conservationists can relate to the protagonist an architect who tries to build an ecologically and human scale development to preserve the ancient beauty of a south of France city and is overruled by the CEO of the corporation who wants the old town torn down, open spaces built over and replaced by flower boxes on the high rise apt balconies! The CEO suggests he take some time off to reconsider his objections. He takes a tour of Southern Switzerland, Northern Italy,and finally Rome. Along the way he and his wife Aliénor meet a young brother and sister. The sister has taken to her bed in illness exacerbated by the young brothers immanent departure for university to study architecture in Venice. Aliénor suggests to the mother that the brother and sister had an unnatural closeness and that might be part of the problem of her illness. This suggestion of incest was not explored or commented on after that so I am not sure what Aliénor meant beyond that.

Aliénor stays in Ticino (southern Switzerland) while Alexandre and the brother, Goffredo travel to Rome. Along the way they explore the architecture of the cathedrals and we are treated to a visual and academic narrative by Alexandre which I found interesting and educational.By the end (there are no surprises ) there is a somewhat satisfactory resolution of the characters inner conflicts.

Review

[catpantry · 1/10 · 7 April 2020]

The guy in this (crain graze) was about to learn: you can't run your finger along a burger during courtship and say 'i eat because i have to.' On a seperate note. Watch out if you're going to try kirks castle soap. Nearly skinned myself alive with it. Last thing. There was a nice car, a stuben. Crain wanted that car badly, needed it like he was possessed. They show him laying in bed thinking with his hands and legs strapped down.

Very unusual film--hard to review

[Red-125 · 9/10 · 3 June 2017]

La Sapienza (2014) is a French movie, written and directed by Eugène Green. (Note that Green, despite the accent over the e in his name, is American, not French.)

This movie doesn't fit into a pattern. It's about alienation between husband and wife, it's about Italian Baroque architecture, and it's about love. The problem in reviewing the film is that all these matters are presented to us in very unusual ways.

The person who introduced the movie pointed out the influence of Bresson on Green's work. I thought that it was closer to Antonioni or possibly Ozu. Actually, it's not that close to any other director whose films I've seen.

Fabrizio Rongione portrays Alexandre Schmidt, an architect at the height of success. However, he's burned out, especially because his plan for a model housing unit in a rural village is met with a counter proposal to cement everything over and just put in windowsills with flower pots on them.

His wife, Aliénor (Christelle Prot Landman) says she's a "psychologist, psychoanalyst, and sociologist." She appears to work for a nonprofit organization (I think) that cares about community well being. (There's a short scene where she's describing the wretched circumstances in an--I believe--Algerian neighborhood, and she's met with rude humor rather than understanding.)

It's had to tell whether Alexandre and Aliénor still love one another. In their scenes together, they stare at the camera, not at each other, and barely talk.

Alexandre decides to travel to Italy to revive his interest in the Baroque Italian architect Borromini. Aliénor travels with him. In Italy, they meet a brother and sister: Goffredo (Ludovico Succio) and Lavinia (Arianna Nastro). Goffredo wants to become an architect. Lavinia suffers from a "neuologic disorder." (Never specified, and not clear from the plot.)

In a surprise turn of events, Aliénor stays behind to be with Lavinia, and Alexandre travels with Goffredo to Rome to observe Borromini's work.

I can't reveal more of the plot. What I can do is say that this is a quiet film, but never boring. There's no violence, no sex, and no bizarre occurrences. One scene appears to flow into the next almost seamlessly. It's not a good movie if you want action, but it will work if you relax and watch the plot of the film unfold.

I was particularly impressed by the acting of Christelle Prot Landman, an actress whose work I've never seen before. She has a quiet presence that fits the part perfectly. She reminds me of Fannie Ardant in the movie Colonel Chabert. When asked what she is like, the answer is "Superb."

We saw this movie at the wonderful Dryden Theatre in Rochester's George Eastman Museum. It won't work as well on a small screen--because of the architecture--but it's worth seeing in any way you can. It's different, and it's fascinating.