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Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This film deals with idealism vs. pragmatism. The main character starts off deeply caring about his honor, then gradually gives it all up until he becomes a prostitute for the Nazis and complies in killing his friend for his own survival. Several of his peers retain their ideals, refuse to submit, and die pathetic deaths.The film seems to be admitting a harsh truth of reality: that life is ultimately about survival and that ideals and thoughts are not important beyond how they influence our actions. At some point they hold us back and we're better off abandoning them.At one point the Nazi female commander laments that the Nazis are trying to make humanity better but doomed to fail, and the snivelling rats who will do anything to survive (the main character) will continue on. This is a good point. The Nazis were idealistic too in wanting to elevate humanity.So the film isn't on the side of idealism or pragmatism. Clearly humanity is a complex combination of both; every person has some degree of fundamental ideals and some degree of flexibility and pragmatism. And there are many different ideals that are in opposition to one another.One of the idealist characters at one point mentions a possible resolution that is popular: for humans to turn into sheep. If we can only stop evolution and eliminate violence from the world, we can live happily ever after.The film is otherwise lacking in insight. It's not clear what it views as a resolution. It does seem clear that the film isn't happily embracing the world as it is, give its sombre tone.The film starts out with a montage of stock footage of Hitler and Mussolini set to cartoonish music and a voice narrating some phrases that sound like they're probably insulting. A short ways in, we see evil Nazis shooting innocent women and children in the forest. At one point, the dialogue is set up for one character to defend Mussolini and another, wiser character to rebut all of their arguments and explain why Mussolini was bad. Finally, the characters end up in a concentration camp where evil Nazis shoot innocent prisoners for no reason. Who knows what the director really believes - she isn't telling us - but the apparent heavy anti-Nazi, Nazis-are-pure-evil bias of the film is annoying.The film is otherwise fairly mediocre. Far from a masterpiece. It's an odd mixture of genres. Not very funny. The best thing about it is probably the excellent acting of the main character.

For most films that I praise, I would jump at the opportunity for another viewing. Not so with Pasqualino Settebellezze (Seven Beauties). It explores extremely disturbing and sickening ideas that I hate to think about. Unfortunately, I feel that watching it is necessary. It is an Italian film about a man named Pasqualino Frafuso. A soldier for fascist Italy in World War II, he is a despicable but complicated character. I hated him for practically the entire film, although I noticed a hint of sympathy towards the end. Thats not to say he was a bad character; Giancarlo Giannini does an amazing performance as Pasqualino. His postures, expressions, and mood were perfect. After he does something horrible, you can sense regret in his character as he develops. Highly imperfect characters are usually a gamble, but it worked out well in this case.The plot alternates between two phases of Pasqualino's life. The first begins with Pasqualino deserting his army train during combat. After wandering into a forest, he and a friend get captured by Germans and sent to a concentration camp. The recreation of the concentration camp is eerily spot-on. At this point, Pasqualino vows to find a way out of the camp. He faces a grueling trial to gain the affection of a physically and mentally unattractive female Nazi commandant. The second plot line reviews Pasqualino's life as a young man with seven sisters. We see the destructive flaws in his character. All of the crimes he commits as a young man return to haunt him when he is in the camp.The film does not hold back on political or social messages. Pasqualino is revealed as a character who does not think beyond self preservation and reputation, making him the perfect tool. He endorses Mussolini's beliefs just to make life easier for himself. When people with real political ruminations talk to him, he rubs off their ideas without a second thought. He begins to understand his mistakes toward the conclusion of the film, but is forced into tough circumstances.Pasqualino Settebellezze does not fear to explore the boundaries of society that many people choose to ignore. If you are going to watch this, be prepared.

Pasqualino Settebellezze is one of the great films on the 20th Century and about the 20th Century. It is about survival in unsurvivable circumstances. It is about Life breaking through the most vicious impositions of death imaginable. It is about survival conveying a nobility that may be undeserved but is nonetheless achieved. Another reviewer compared it to Life is Beautiful but doing so both cheapens Seven Beauties and unjustifiably aggrandizes Benigni's rather pallid opus. Where Benigni travels a pedestrian path, Wertmuller soars into the sublime.It might be a good idea to watch this movie as a mini-Wertmuller festival starting with The Seduction of Mimi, thence to Swept Away and finally to Seven Beauties. If you don't think that Giancarlo Giannini is a great actor in the mold of Marcello Mastroianni when you've done watching those three films then you need some instruction in what acting is all about.Fernando Rey turns in the best performance he ever gave for a director other than Luis Bunuel and Shirley Stoler is magnificent. Funny, sad, and terrifying by turns. She was a much underrated actress.Pasqualino Settebellezze ranks with 8 1/2, Grand Illusion, The Last Laugh, The Seventh Seal, Derzu Uzala and Citizen Kane as a great masterpiece. To pass it up is like not reading Hamlet or Don Quixote. It's impossible to understand film without it.

The old adage: "He who fights and runs away Lives to fight another day" seems to pretty well summarise Pascalino's attitude to life. He is very much on the run through much of this film. After all he did murder a man who deflowered his sister. But then he believes murder is permissible under some circumstances e.g. when the honour of the family is at stake. As for war, why kill people you do not even know? This and many other questions he keeps asking himself.I happened upon this gem of a film quite unexpectedly. The title meant nothing to me. For the first part of the film I was disarmed by a light comedy, so very Italian, about a "casanova" who had all the ladies swooning. I was enjoying his antics (perhaps learning a thing or two) when suddenly, captured and thrust into the confines of a Nazi prison camp he became a tragic figure indeed as he tried to seduce (using every known technique)the very brutal Commandant, a fearsome woman to be sure.The horrors of war and the terrible decisions which have to be made to save one's own skin becomes the major thrust of this film.It's a thoroughly entertaining anti-war film with some home-spun philosophy about war and life in general which deserves deep thought by those contemplating any type of warfare. The message is just as pertinent today as it was when this film was made nearly 30 years ago.