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Too much of everything

So much average

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Irena (Kseniya Rappoport) is a mystery woman obsessed with getting the nanny job with a particular family. She bribes the building's manager to clean the common area. She befriends the family's nanny and then she even trips her down the stairs to her death. Valeria Adacher, her daughter Thea, and husband Donato have a secret safe in their apartment. Thea is pushed around at school and Irena uses unconventional measures to toughen her. In the continuing flashbacks, Irena is an Ukrainian prostitute who finds love with a young man. That past is never far from her mind and comes back to harass her.This is a movie precious with its ultimate reveal. It does a great job creating some misdirections. It lasts a bit too long. The reveal should come sooner allowing a more compelling action thriller third act. It's a compelling mystery for the first hour. The sex slave montage does get repetitive and possibly reveals too much. This could be a more compelling thriller if it's tighter.

Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore both wrote (with Massimo De Rita) and directed this intensely powerful film about the resilience of the human spirit. It is a triumphant masterpiece of a film that somehow has escaped the eyes of the audiences here in this country. With this DVD it should find a legion of fine film aficionados for 'La Sconosciuta'/'The Unknown Woman'/'The Other Woman' as it is variable named. In a series of flashbacks and flash forwards the story reveals the history of a Ukrainian girl Irena (a brilliant tour de force of acting by Russian born actress known variably as Kensiya/Ksenia/Xenia Rappoport) who lives in a small village, has a handsome construction worker lover, but following a need for a better life of wealth and fame, becomes involved with the pimp Muffa (Michele Placido) who uses her popularity as a prostitute to fill his coffers while sadistically binding and beating her into submission as a breeder of babies for the black market. Irena finally attacks Muffa, thinking she has killed him, escapes and moves to Velarchi, Italy where she rents a small apartment across the street from wealthy couple Donato (Pierfrancesco Favino) and Valeria (Claudia Gerini) Adacher who are gold dealers and their daughter Tea (Clara Dossena) who apparently is suffering from a neurological disorder that causes her parents to be overprotective of her lack of ability to cope with aggression. First working as a servant and house cleaner Irena pleads with her employer to find her a better job, and that job just happens to be a new nanny for the Adachers. Irena gradually ingratiates herself in to the family, earning the trust and respect of the parents and especially that of Tea. In a series of flashbacks instigated by events that occur in the household Irena relives her gruesome past, devotes herself to training Tea how to defend herself, and in general makes herself indispensable to the family. But many twists and turns occur: Muffa is not dead and shows up in Velarchi demanding money, beats Irena, and causes a life of desperation for Irena. Because Irena is convinced that Tea is one of her babies she sold on the Black Market she does many things that turn out negatively: at worst she discovers Tea is not indeed her daughter and the events that follow are both tragic and ultimately redeeming Kseniva Rappoport is transcendently beautiful, immersing herself in this impossibly difficult role without ever losing our empathy. Both Gerini and Favino as the parents and Dossena as the daughter are consummate actors and the fine cast is supported by cameo roles by such luminaries as Margherita Buy, Nicola Di Pinto and of course Michele Placido as one of the oiliest, most hateful villains ever created for the screen. The effective cinematography, mixing the past imagery with the present, is the fine work of Fabio Zamarion and the musical score is by the always-fine Ennio Morricone. Giuseppe Tornatore has created a masterpiece of cinematic art. A revelation. Grady Harp

"The Unknown Woman" is a peculiar and nearly unclassifiable film from Italy; usually my favorite movie-producing country when it comes to thrillers, horror and cult movies. The plot slowly unfolds like a grim and mystifying thriller with authentic Giallo and sleaze aspects, but gradually turns into an overly sentimental drama with a disappointing soap-opera denouement. Not that this is a bad film (how can it be with all the prestigious awards it received?) but if you were hoping for a perplexing thriller, your hunger will not be stilled. Giuseppe Tornatore, the director of the legendary "Cinema Paradiso", presents an extremely convoluted and oddly structured story, but shares only very little information with the viewer. "The Unknown Woman" remains a labyrinth until quite late in the film, and then still you remain behind with a whole lot of questions and illogicalness. The events jump back and forth between the curious mission of a Ukrainian woman in Italy and the traumatizing adventures of a blond-wigged prostitute in a pauperized neighborhood. It honestly takes a little while before you're a hundred percent certain this is one and the same person. But yes, the elegant and sophisticated 32-year-old Irena apparently spent most of her teenage years and twenties in the East-European sex industry. She now attempts to infiltrate as a governess/maid in a wealthy Italian household, but it's not immediately clear why. She clearly doesn't need the money, as she has a roll of cash in her pocket and promptly affords herself an apartment and driving lessons, but nevertheless she's desperate enough to even assault the current nanny in order to take her place in the Adacher family. Approximately halfway through, the attentive viewer begins to suspect where the main storyline is leading towards, but then there still are plenty enough bizarre twists to keep you contemplating. It would be a shame to reveal too much beforehand, but rest assured the questions and doubts will keep coming to you long after the film has finished as well. Purely talking from a cinematic point of view, "The Unknown Woman" is an enchanting and ultimately stylish experiment. Tornatore creates a hypnotizing melancholic atmosphere through slow pacing and depressing imagery (there are hardly any colors in this film) and Ennio Morricone once more proved that he's still the world's greatest composer of chilling film music; even at age 78. Wondrous performances from lead actresses Xenia Rappoport and Claudia Gerini and particularly from Michele Placido as the genuinely menacing and terrifying bald pimp Muffa.

A little hard to follow and a little hard to swallow, this film by the director of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is gritty and loose. A dark controlled chaos in skilled hands, it feels like an army of films rushing at you all at once. It's a bit overwhelming until the grabs you, sucks you in and won't let you go performance of Xenia Rappoport kicks in. She's a magnet in the middle of a mysterious mayhem. It's too bad that the style and substance of the film will prevent it from ever becoming popular because her portrayal of suffering and sheer determination is one for the history books. The woman's got chops. She moves like an insect through the undergrowth of her seedy milieu with an androgynous, unkempt beauty that's both tempting and invisible. She's able to shift her portrayal from one emotion to another, and then another, without moving a muscle in her face—a skill few actors possess. It's her story and we follow her through it not knowing exactly what she's after or what she will do with it when she seems to have it in her grasp. That's the unknown part and Rappoport plays the mystery for all it's worth. She works the complex narrative inside her head and lets the revelations drip out slowly, uncontrollably.Director Giuseppe Tornatore says this film is about a woman reclaiming her power as a woman (there's a great big serving of motherhood with that) after it has been stripped from her from every angle imaginable. Rappoport's character is the victim of a human slave trade that uses immigrant Eastern European women to make babies for the upper-class. She's gotten out of it, but with a lot of baggage. Some of it is misplaced and some of it is hurled at us in short, chaotic flashbacks in the beginning of the film (that's the hard to follow part), slowly unfolding to more understandable scenes as they catch up with her present life at the end of the film—a nice structural technique by the director.Roger Ebert wrote a review of this movie which essentially lists the aspects of it he thinks he understands and the aspects he thinks he doesn't. He scores a little above average, I think, which is about as good as anyone is probably going to do. There's a noir-ish component (not a stylistic one) to the film where major events and character traits are unleashed which are way beyond the reality of any mere mortal's life. There are also plenty of cause-for-pause moments when you will consider if the means justify the end. That's the hard to swallow part but I'm not complaining. It is a movie after all, and if you've read many of my reviews you know that I take all comers when it comes to plot gymnastics as long as they don't infringe upon the integrity of my players, as long as they don't cause incredulity to appear on the faces of the actors because they don't believe the script. Giuseppe Tornatore is lucky, or smart, to have enlisted an actress with the strength of Xenia Rappoport. ET coulda popped in here and I don't think she would have missed a beat.Speaking of beats, Ennio Morricone scored this film with superbly.