Gerald Wright's Movie Coverage
THE UNKNOWN WOMAN Movie Review (La Sconosciuta)
Directed & written by: Giuseppe Tornatore
Running time: 118 minutes
Release date: May 30, 2008
Genre: Art/Foreign and Thriller (Italian with English subtitles)
Distributor: Outsider Pictures
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
With his new feature The Unknown Woman, Director Giuseppe Tornotore (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and Cinema Paradiso:The New Version-Directors Cut) explores the important topic of sex exploitation in Russia and Italy.
This haunting tale of mystery, love and murder focuses on an Ukranian woman named Irena/The Unknown Woman (Xenia Rappoport) who is on a search for her child she was forced to give away. Xenia Rappoport, a former stage actress, delivers a brilliant performance as Irena. Irena is one of many prostitutes the sleazy pimp "Mold/Muffa" (Michele Placido) controls in his sadistic sex world. Once they become pregnant and give birth, these women are forced to surrender their babies to blackmarket baby markets. Irena decides she will find her child who is now 5 years old. The only way she could pursue this plan is to get away from her violent pimp so she attempts to kill him.
There is a mystique in the flow of the opening scenes that are reminiscent of David Lynch's style of filming. It shows the raunchy world of perverted sex in unrelated sequences. Many of these scenes are raw and violent; however, these scenes are very effective in making the transformation of the plot from Hitchcockian to melodramatic, and then back to sensitive and emotional.
Irena desperately seeks employment with Valeria and Donato Adacher (Claudia Gernini and Pierfrancesco Favino) a young Italian couple with a 5 year old daughter named Tea (Clara Dossena). Irena believes this little girl is her biological daughter and wills her own strength on Tea to try to make her a strong person. Clara Dossena is fantastic as a little girl bonding with a new nanny (Irena).
The combination of sex, murder, mayhem, violence and mystery makes this a worthwhile film to watch. In order to secure a nanny position with this family Irena decides to kill the present nanny (Angela Molina). Irena has other problems concerning her pimp from the Ukraine "Mold/Muffa" who didn't die after her attempts to kill him and who tracks her to Italy. It seems she has also taken his money when she fled Russia.
There are some major holes in the plot of The Unknown Woman such as how and why was Irena involved in this sex exploitation ring in Russia to begin with? However, these flaws can be overlooked with the great Italian supporting cast members of Piera Degli Esposti, Alessandro Haber, Nicola Di Pinto and Gisella Marengo and the direct visual style of Giuseppe Tornatore. This was Italy's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the 80th Academy Awards (2008).
FILM RATING (B)
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