Seven Beauties

Some films call to us across the decades. Directed by Lina Wertmuller and made in 1976, it is not exactly an antiwar film. Maybe an anti-giving up film. Perhaps it is best to make little comment about the film. It is best just to see it. It has several extended sequences where there is no dialogue, just music. The opening is one of those with footage of Hitler and Mussolini. A jazzy music accompanies bombs exploding and flames leaping up. Then there is a voiceover saying things like "the ones that don't enjoy themselves even when they laugh," "the ones who worship the corporate image not knowing they work for someone else," "the one who say follow me to success and kill me if I fail to succeed," "the ones who never get involved in politics" and "the ones who say yes, sir."

The scrappy, unlikely hero is Pasqualino Frafuso call Pasqualino Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze) whom we first see with a companion lost in the woods. He has taken the bandages of a dead man to facilitate his escape from a concentration camp. How he got to this point we see throughout the firm as a series of flashbacks. We hear two hear shots in the woods and see people taking their clothes off. The why of it comes into view. They are disrobing as ordered by guards and then they are shot. Pasqualino's companion says they must try to stop it: "in the face of certain things you've got to say no." But Pasqualino says it is "useless suicide." He says he has said "yes" to Mussolini and has killed for no reason. He says "I killed for a woman."

Pasqualino is called Seven Beauties partly because of his group of sisters and apparently because of his affinity for the ladies. His mother worships him as do the sisters.

The first flashback is accompanies by "oompa music." Pasqualino's sister has been persuaded by her boyfriend to be a dance hall singer later a prostitute. Pasqualino in his better days is dapper in his suit and hat, his cigarette holder dangling from his mouth. To him this is all about "honor" and he threatens the boyfriend eventually accidentally killing him. He goes to Don Raffaele who tells him he must take care of it. He chops up the body mailing it to three different places but to no avail. His sister denounces him to the police. Honor still the problem. His lawyer tells him he has to decide between honor and life. If he says he is insane he can get a reduced sentence not death. He chooses life.

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