CAMILLA (76)

Directed by: Luciano Emmer (1954)

Starring: Gabriele Ferzetti, Franco Fabrizi, Luciana Angiolillo

The Pitch: A young doctor and his family live in a Rome apartment trying to make ends meet, falling prey to a friend's money-making schemes, watched over by their middle-aged maid Camilla.

Theo Sez: Who is Luciano Emmer? A non-fiction specialist, apparently, and a bit of neo-realist, having worked with Cesare Zavattini (of BICYCLE THIEVES fame) - though also, on this evidence, a director with a strong sense of humour and a wonderfully fluid style, featuring the kind of group shots where people drift in and out of frame and the kind of picaresque rhythms (the film is almost plotless) where little incidents flow into each other : girl starts to dance at a party, her boyfriend wanders off to help in the kitchen, cuts his finger, gets it bandaged by a friend's wife, makes a half-playful pass at her ; a little girl hovers on the brink of a tantrum then gets distracted by a kitten, while her parents finish an argument and her brother starts playing a piece on the piano. Tendency to finger-wag, unfortunately, casting Camilla as the exemplar of traditional values (a village woman clicking her tongue at the decadent urbanites), and the wispy narrative all but evaporates, but still remarkably fresh and lively, set in a post-war Rome of shifting values and get-rich-quick schemes, playing like a cross between urban Pagnol - the apartment block, with its various gossiping denizens - and an uncommonly honest 50s family sitcom where Dad spanks the kids and argues with Mom about money : can't recall another film from the period with such a strong, unforced evocation of family life (the kids played by Emmer's own brood), all the quarrels and crises and constant cacophony and moments of harmony blended together, delighting without prettifying (Ferzetti as the father is a self-centred boor in many ways). Obviously minor, but funny and very human, and the touch is so light it flows like water. Who the hell is Luciano Emmer, anyway?...