Luis Garcia Berlanga
Grandezza naturale

Granted that the so-called libido is a natural force common to all living beings belonging to any animal species, the question remains valid: to what extent can one go? In short, when does a transgression occur that leads one to think there is a deviance in sexuality? Not a far-fetched question at all, especially if one is faced with a film like "Grandezza naturale" made by Luis Garcia Berlanga in 1973, of which I found a copy on DVD a few years ago while visiting Madrid (the work is still only available on the Spanish market today with the original title "Tamaño natural").

Here it is good to preface that director Berlanga had the opportunity to work for many years in Francoist Spain, not exactly understanding towards a certain type of auteur cinema. Yet Berlanga, subtly infusing a certain ironic approach, did not direct films that were overly apologetic and accommodating towards the prevailing mindset in Spain of the time. Obviously, the film reviewed by me here was decidedly bold and was released in France in 1974, in Italy the following year, and in Spain only in 1977 (when the great general Francisco Franco had kicked the bucket) and was still always met with certain scandal and incredible requests for withdrawal from circulation (but more on that later).

The story revolves around a successful middle-aged French dentist named Michel, who sinks into the boredom of marital routine (despite his wife being a brilliant and pretty woman). How to get out of this situation, given that even occasional extramarital flings lead nowhere? Well, having the means, here's a titillating novelty: having delivered (picking it up in person at customs) from abroad (perhaps a Scandinavian country) suitably boxed, none other than an inflatable doll, perfectly faithful to the original of a fascinating sexy blonde woman, what one might call a real sex bomb. A quirk on the part of a sexually healthy man like Michel (played by a great Michel Piccoli, an actor always at ease in morally questionable roles) who perhaps deludes himself into keeping the alluring doll secret, in the storeroom of the dental office.

But soon the situation gets out of hand, and it's not just about sexually venting with the artificial type. For him, the relationship becomes his obsession, his reason for living. Why keep the secret affair going? It is worth placing his wife before the accomplished fact (the reaction of the aforementioned is easily imaginable), making the situation known even to the mother (strangely more understanding towards the son) and taking everything to the extreme consequences. Thus, separation and divorce from the spouse, even the celebration of a wedding with the doll within the walls of the new home where the newlyweds retire to live in dissonance with the surrounding world, until, as if nothing, creating an almost normal couple when one considers (here the screenplay's stretch is evident) the presence of an evidently adopted infant clinging to the breasts of Michel's new artificial wife.

All good then? Certainly not, if despite the doll being a simulacrum of a submissive woman towards such a vicious male, jealousy and possessiveness make an appearance everywhere, even in this abnormal situation, and without specifying the subsequent developments, the outcome of the entire story will be tragic, and the plot twist will leave the viewer astounded (from the series: even an artificial object designed to give pleasure to its owner can prove fatal for its rightful owner).

It is evident that we are in the presence of a very corrosive apologue towards certain double-faced bourgeois morality, publicly irreproachable but privately depraved, obsessed with the desire to be modern (at the time the film was made, owning an inflatable doll had to be truly à la page). The main character, the dentist Michel, could consider himself satisfied with life, but the tedium that afflicts him leads him astray. The liberalization of customs, experienced during those years when the film was released, could certainly open up interesting horizons and life prospects, leading to a free and expanded sexuality ("stuffily" as Nanni Moretti would have defined it in a famous line), but reaching the point of losing one's head for an artificial woman could not constitute a valid alternative and could not guarantee a healthy psycho-physical balance. Difficult then to empathize with the dentist Michel, a sexually confused and deviant man, targeted by a sulfurous director like Berlanga.

And said thus, it would seem like a clear and shareable message. Only that, in the years of the film's release, although it was easy to find films with at least hinted, if not explicit, sex scenes, furious controversies arose over the themes addressed by Berlanga. And, incredible but true, the then widespread feminist circles deemed it right, as modern auxiliaries of the holy censorial inquisition, to hope for the withdrawal from circulation of the damned film, guilty of conveying a chauvinist image of the woman as an object (the film remained in theaters in Italy for a short time and is still not found on the Italian DVD market). As much as "Grandezza naturale" is a work with bold content and not devoid of risqué passages, in my opinion, it is rather a caustic representation of a sick sex addiction on the part of a pathetic and crisis-stricken male character. Here, therefore, another demonstration of how censorship can be obtuse and how it is right to leave to the individual viewer the complete faculty to appreciate or not a cinematographic work, without others (part of minorities) standing as supreme judges of artistic beauty and moral acceptability.