Cristina Comencini
La Bestia Nel Cuore

THE REVIEW

A wise saying goes: «There are three types of secrets: those we confide only to a friend, those we confide only to ourselves and those we do not even confide to ourselves». "The Beast in the Heart" by Cristina Comencini can be summarized with this very saying.

Sabina (an intense Giovanna Mezzogiorno, awarded the Coppa Volpi 2005 as best actress for this performance) is beautiful, has a partner who loves her, sincere friends, and a job she likes. She comes from a family of teachers: what we would define as the classic «well-off family». It really seems that everything in her life is going perfectly. Only when she deals with some bureaucratic details regarding the transfer of her parents' remains from one cemetery to another does something start not to add up: she realizes she has no memories of her childhood. Or very few and faded ones, which surprises her quite a bit. Sometimes a happy event can hold horrible surprises, so the moment Sabina discovers she is pregnant, she starts having terrifying nightmares. She sees the house of her childhood, her father, and other seemingly confused and meaningless images that, however, leave deep anguish in the girl's heart.

Thus begins an inner search that will lead the young woman to re-explore her childhood, bravely striving to confront reality. She flies to America where her brother has long since moved and started a family, and she notices some oddities and big little barriers between him and his children: he can't touch them, be affectionate with them. Little by little, the puzzle comes together. Sabrina discovers—or rather remembers, thanks also to her brother's confession—that throughout their childhood, the two were sexually abused by their father. That cultured father, always calm, who by day was a 'respectable' teacher, at night turned into a monster. And the mother? The mother knew everything. And she remained silent, an accomplice to violence that would mark the young lives of the children forever.

"The Beast in the Heart" is a film of rare intensity. It shows without embellishments what happens in so many, too many families where a facade of serenity hides horrific violence and abuse. It represented Italy at the 2006 Oscars, unfortunately not bringing home the prestigious statuette, and was presented in Venice and Berlin, achieving a fair amount of success. The film is intense, realistic, at times cruel. However, Comencini is brilliant at not weighing it down with too many dramatic scenes: in the film, there is an air of tension and suffering, but there are no explicit images, and above all, there are also ironic tones, thanks especially to a stellar Angela Finocchiaro and an unexpected Stefania Rocca. A movie that I recommend to everyone. It will surely leave viewers bewildered, but it is good to know that this is indeed a film, but also an extremely realistic story.