OPEN ROADS ITALIAN SERIES - FERZAN ÖZPETEK: DIAMONDS/DIAMANTI (2024)



Glory and drama of a vintage Italian movie costumer

The ambitious, glamorous new Italian film Diamanti begins with a sequence packed with actresses, eighteen of them, whom the director has previously directed in previous films. It's a luncheon party staged to introduce to them, somewhat artificially perhaps (wouldn't they already know?), the project of a new historical film, set in the eighteenth century, in which they will all perform. Most importantly, since it's the the main focus here, costumes will be made for these actresses that will be spectacular. This is a film about the art and industry of turning out movie costumes, focused on a historical Academy Award winning studio, Sartoria Canova, that produced them for the Italian film world.

So the film quickly moves from that somewhat chaotic gathering to the very focused and high-pressure world of costume-making.

On the Italian online film site My Movies a viewer says "Diamanti di Özpetek è il classico esempio di un film che vuole dire tutto ma finisce per non dire niente": "Özpetek's Diamonds is a classic example of a film that wants to say everything and winds up saying nothing." This is unkind, and the film has been a successful crowd-pleaser in Italy (note the Davide Audience Award), but Diamonds is not a film likely to please those with an aversion to the glitzy, or the busy. It has a lot of stories to tell, not all of which can be considered integral to the plot, though in a sense, there is no plot anyway. Which stories will we remember? Aside from the bitchy boss-ladies, I'll remember Nicoletta (Milena Mancini), the cruelly abused seamstress, who can't hide her trauma at work. It's a terrifying tale, which drags the movie into a very ugly place, but may appeal to a country that is finally acknowledging its spousal abuse problem. On the other hand, everybody likes Silvana , the laid-back, bosomy cook, and Mara Venier, who plays her. She examplifies what they mean in Italian by "simpatica."

Özpetek is a prolific director generally admired in today's Italian cinema. Paolo Innocenti] the Youtube reviewer, provided a warm review, enthusiastically listing the many famous Italian actresses involved here, as well as Stefano Accorsi, who plays the director, while Özpetek comes in to play himself making this movie. But Innocenti makes clear that this isn't a film that can further flesh out the director's status as "the Italian Almodovar," because it lacks the passion, sexuality, and homosexuality of his films and is a movie about the making of movies and really not that either but only particularly that special branch of the craft of costuming. (Actually there is a short sequence of the most blatant beefcake that is, if not about gayness, pretty gay.)

Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca star as Alberta and Gabriella, two sisters who preside over the Roman fashion house of Canova during the 1970's. They are abusive, crazy-making prima donnas, dominant types for sure, but there are plenty of other personalities, and there is a big job to do to make all these fancy costumes (do we see enough of them, though?) for the movie in under two weeks. The way in which each character is given her little moment of personal emotion - the lover reappeared after fifteen years, the husband who's terribly abusive on the pretixt of a "bad" risotto, the child who has to hide because there's no babysitter, and so on, may be seen as engaging, on the on hand, or pat and trite, on the other. And always a bit distracting, a bit in too many directions. Yet we must admit that Italian cinema knows how to deliver corn in the most delicious way. This is a good risotto. But it's got an awful lot of flavors.

This is a film that's divisive, and while many love those flavors, others find this whole wedding cake of movie and drama celebration indigestible and lacking the kind of solid drama Özpetek has proven himself so good at providing. The score seems conventional and obtrusive at times, but the crafts are impeccable. And the dedication to women, and women in film, is sincere, as signaled by the concluding homage to three great ladies of Italian cinema, Mariangela Melato, Virna Lisi, and Monica Vitti. At Lincoln Center a magnificant series is coming shortly, June 6-19, 2025, entitled La Modernista , to celebrate Monica Vitti's remarkable career, which ranges from the funniest to the most solemn and serious films of the great Italian cinematic postwar era. That will be wonderful, but it will be a reminder that we're not there now.

Diamonds/Diamanti, 135 mins., opened theatrically in Italy Dec. 19, 2024. Winner of the audience award at the 2025 Donatello Awards. Screened for this review as part of FLC/CineCitta’s Open Roads Italian series at Lincoln Center (May 29-Jun. 5, 2025). Showtimes:
Thursday, May 29 at 3:30pm – Q&A with Ferzan Özpetek
Tuesday, June 3 at 6:30pm

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.