Ascanio Celestini
Viva la Sposa

Viva la sposa is a film written, directed, and acted by Ascanio Celestini, a theater actor from Rome, born in '72.

Celestini's theater is a theater of "narration," where the author, through storytelling, illustrates his content often focused on social themes linked to the world of the proletariat and labor.

Viva la sposa, co-produced by the Dardenne brothers and with Luca Bigazzi as the cinematographer (remarkable work), is his second film. The first one, "La pecora nera," received decent recognition among insiders and won a few awards.

Viva la sposa is not what you expect.

It's a very bitter comedy where, however, you laugh very little, actually almost not at all.

It is a changing object that should be approached with caution and lends itself to multiple interpretations and readings.

Viva la sposa is the story of Nicola.

Nicola lives in a squalid basement with his son (but I suspect he's not his son).

Nicola makes some money by putting on small children's theater shows in unlikely venues, like a suburban bar, for example.

Nicola has a white van and damn it, this morning while he was listening to the AVE MARIA, he just didn't see that old man he ran over.

Nicola drinks.

His life is slipping out of his hands, or maybe he never took it by the hand.

Disenchanted and in some respects "pure" like Voltaire's Candide, Nicola lets himself be swept away by events or more simply observes them; if he were a tarot card, he would be "the Hanged Man."

Around him, the Roman suburbs and its inhabitants ugly and dirty but not mean like their illustrious predecessor many years ago.

Here, this film reminds me in some aspects of Ettore Scola's masterpiece for the characters that are part of it, for their condition and their desperate and hopeless lives.

But Viva la sposa is also something else.

There is this bride, they meet her at night at the gas station, they see her on TV in a news report as she wanders among the rubble.

There is this tall, blonde, beautiful bride. A metaphorical figure who doesn't interact with the characters, yet it's the title of the film.

But who is this bride? What does this figure mean? I've come up with an answer, and I'm certainly not telling you, who knows if it's the right answer.

A curious film, as I said, slow ...that lazily unravels between sambuca and a tragedy. A disjointed film, one might say "without plot." Disjointed in the sense that there's a shift in narrative style starting one way and ending another, and even when it starts, it's not clear where it's going. This characteristic may unsettle the average viewer accustomed to beginning - development - end within predefined tracks, but yes, sometimes life is like that, you don't know what's in store for you... like you expected it one way, but it ends another way... like this film indeed.

The film has been criticized by law enforcement because they are portrayed in a certain way. It's a certain way, let's say their way of doing things... it happens when they lose control...

One piece of information. In this film, one of the protagonists is Salvatore Striano, an ex-con turned actor thanks to the Taviani brothers, those of "Caesar Must Die," and here he is extraordinary, really.

It's a film to watch; it's not necessarily that you will like it, perhaps it wasn't made to please...