Aurelio Grimaldi
Rosa Funzeca

A mother...What can a mother be? What might she be?

A woman, a flower grown among stones, a foam rubber pillow lying in a bush of thorns. A whore. Because a mother can be a whore. It's hard to believe that a mother can allow herself to be torn apart by the selfishness of men. Can let herself be violated without being able to choose the tormentor of the moment. Every executioner is paid in money, that's the minimum. Sometimes it's left on the shabby nightstands of hourly hotels, other times in the glove compartment of a car. To get the same thing. That which a man or a beast rarely wants to abstain from, especially if there are limits imposed by modesty or taboos in that ordinary world.

Rosa Funzeca is tired. She has known too many bodies. Young, old, sweaty, dirty, perhaps sick. She has allowed herself to be probed too many times by ephemeral lovers. Her "roasts" have made the rounds on the sidewalks and for that Rosa is an institution. Among the ruins of the hellish Neapolitan suburbs everyone has known her. Everyone has been able to bite her breasts or stain her skin. For a few ten-thousand-lira notes. Rosa has a son, Fernando, parked with the friars. It would be tough if he found out about her type of work. It's hard for her to go unnoticed. Maybe he has a vague suspicion but it's not that certain. A mother can't be a whore.

A new life for Rosa is a priority but it's difficult to achieve. First of all, there is love for Fernando, that distrustful, fickle son with a sharp character who doesn't want to soften towards a passionate mother, filled with a tender and touching harshness. That mother who considers him more important than her own eyes but demands the proper respect. That mother who would sell her dignity to the devil, along with flowers and cookies, just to see at least a smile on her son's icy face. Life, however, is a carcass and gives way to the devil because it holds a less arduous path. A stereo or a PlayStation isn't enough to reconnect him to the heart. Fernando has too many doubts and bad company makes him aware of the grim job the mother is forced to do just to see him smile again.

Can one love a mother who is a whore? No. At least I don't think so. But do I love my mother? I don't know. At least for now. Not even if I make her breakfast as a surprise, maybe hinting at a hug while De André recites the song of lost love. Perhaps mine is truly a lost love. I cannot stand that my mother does that "work". That she stays in contact with corrupters, fat usurers, ferocious humanity, and abject compromises. I cannot accept that she loves too many people, also because I wouldn't allow that girl who stole a piece of my heart to do it. Meanwhile, Rosa is forced to go back to the streets. She is full of debts and no one gives her credit. Forced to shake greasy hands again and embrace lubricated bodies. Rosa recalls the recent past of her own mother, that woman she could not stand. She is tired again and furious with herself. She cries. The tears mix with the makeup that mercilessly draws lines down her cheeks. She removes her shoes and badly treads the uneven ground of the desert in Naples. Fernando knows everything. The blind rage and the barely concealed shame will do the rest.

Mom, I loved you...

Grimaldi signs his most significant work, despite being an obvious homage to Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Mamma Roma". It boldly retraces the plot and transports it to the present day, not without difficulties. Ida Di Benedetto performs, as always, in a masterful manner, tenacious, sometimes rough, sometimes sweet, but always illuminated by an imposing mother's heart that pierces every sequence of this film. Also supported by excellent Neapolitan actors and others, from Primo Reggiani to Ennio Fantastichini, passing through Aldo Giuffrè and the refined black and white photography by Maurizio Calvesi, which by not being ruthless, as it perhaps should be, makes the overwhelming squalor of the Neapolitan suburbs and its adjacent hinterland less devastating, also providing remarkable close-ups.