RESPIRO

Winner of the 2002 Cannes Critics Week Award, RESPIRO is about a woman, a spirit, a community and an island. A visual paradise with a bleak economic outlook, the sun-drenched island of Lampedusa, halfway between Sicily and Tunisia, centers around the sea: the men who fish it, the women who process the catch, and the most mysterious woman of them all, free-spirited Grazia, a young mother and wife whose sensuous beauty and emotional highs and lows become the spirit of the island. Director Crialese hung out with the fishermen of Lampedusa in order to pry from them the story of their island: Legend has it that a woman born on the island was “too happy when she was happy” and “too sad when she was sad” and considered crazy by the islanders. The community, and her husband, wanted to send her away to be treated, but she instead one day disappeared into the sea. Everyone thought she had killed herself, and they forgave her the behavior and lamented her beauty and youth, and began to call for her. She began to appear in the islanders' dreams, until one day she reappeared from the sea. The film tells the story of her disappearance: anxious about losing his mother, the fiercely independent 13-year-old Pasquale decides to “kidnap” his mother and hide her in a cave, until that solution comes to a surprising end. The sultry actress Valeria Golino plays Grazia in a role reminiscent of Beatrice Dalle's “Betty Blue”. RESPIRO, made in a loosely flowing and lyrical style, is an evocative, visually arresting film about family, blood ties, and a woman's free spirit. (In Italian with English subtitles)