Written by: Lina Wertmüller
Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Agostina Belli, Luigi Diberti, Elena Fiore
Rating: [2.5/5]
The lengths men will go to in order to demonstrate their selfishness knows absolutely no bounds as history has shown and one would be hard-pressed to find a story more littered with this than The Seduction of Mimi. A constant spiral into the mind of a selfish character constantly finding himself in the oddest of circumstances.
After his supposed private vote against a mafia leader in an election gets publicized, Mimi (Giancarlo Giannini) leaves his hometown for his own safety and greener pastures. When he arrives on the mainland of Italy he begins a love affair even while still being married to his wife back in Sicily along with continuing to find himself mixed up with the mafia.
Lina Wertmüller has deservedly built up a great reputation for the films she has made and as a trailblazer for women filmmakers. Her influence can be felt, especially when gazing upon how this film looks at the politics of Italy at this time and how she manages to construct this neverending hellscape for this character. You can see the imprints on someone like Martin Scorsese who speaks of his adoration for her as evidenced in something like After Hours. The story she manages to construct most certainly creates for a twisty turvy ride but by the time it concludes it begs the question of whether what we just watched carries any sort of lasting merit.
The political messaging sets up two camps with danger looming if one chooses to align themselves with the wrong one. You have the one run by the mafia and the communist party. Choosing between the two most certainly leaves an impact on Mimi’s life as he needs to move around depending on who he interacts with and evidently sleeps with. This largely makes up what makes the feature fascinating to explore. Mimi’s connections to mafiosos despite his political leanings put him constantly in precarious situations and somehow comes out of it still breathing. A consistent game of trying to survive based on who he surrounds himself with and ultimately shapes up as a story of a cowardly man.
This feature certainly has the elements of something outstanding, but the way the execution comes through leaves much to be desired. This film carries a level of ridiculousness with it but by the time Mimi begins to impregnate people left and right because of revenge and anger of being cuckolded, things go completely off the rails. Comedy lingers throughout much of the film with the level of ridiculousness he finds himself in but the extent to which it occurs simply enters a realm where it fails to make much sense. The people in this story are just incredibly casual about who impregnates them, which just left me scratching my head on multiple occasions throughout.
Another element where this film struggles comes from the pacing. This proves to be a common theme with other Lina Wertmüller films I have seen but the flow of this film becomes quite laborious throughout. You have a story just under two hours feeling almost three hours long in the way the narrative plays out. It makes the comedic elements not work so well when each scene feels incredibly tedious to get through, which only serves as a detriment to the strong writing in place by the director. Several scenes have traces of brilliance in what she wants to portray but when it all comes together, the execution does not deliver in the way it should in order to craft an effective and enjoyable story overall.
The Seduction of Mimi contains so much to appreciate as a film and what it manages to display as a narrative. It speaks to the dangers of the mafia in Sicily and how it stretches to mainland Italy as well at the time while also speaking on a man with only so much of a backbone when it comes to his beliefs and who he gets to sleep with. However, as a whole the project suffers from a lack of precision in the way the story comes together making some moments wildly laborious to sit through even when the comedy this narrative employs fires on all cylinders. Certainly, one I can appreciate even if I cannot say I particularly enjoyed it.
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