La Commare Secca

(1962) Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Criterion recently released this dvd of Bertolucci’s first film. He co-wrote the screenplay from a story by Pier Pasolini. It’s a Rashomon structured story involving the police interviewing a number of individuals about a murdered prostitute. The movie is divided into segments showing us (with sometime contradictory voiceover) what the characters (a thief, a gigolo, a soldier, two boys, a man) did in the time leading up to the murder. For the most part the characters have nothing to do with the murder, instead we see how they spent their day. At a certain point in each segment a brief rainshower erupts and the scene switches to the prostitute getting up from bed and preparing to go out. In the end the murder is shown and then the murderer is captured. The ending was a little too tied up for me as far as the murder case goes, but I don’t see the murder as the real focus of the film. In an accompanying interview Bertolucci discusses how we was trying to show the passing of time (which undoubtably is one thing film can do above other arts) for the characters. The scene with the prostitute during the rainshower was originally supposed to repeat in total during each segment as a kind of refrain, but the producer disliked the idea and instead we see it broken into fragements. I think I’d have preferred the total repetition. The camera is almost constantly moving in the film. There is a great scene where the soldier sits into some shelter during the rainshower and the camera tracks back revealing a number of women standing nearby in what appears to be a bridge. The foreground is darkened but there is light in the distance silhouetting the soldier. It’s a slow movie but I enjoyed it for that passing of time in the everyday.

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