Picciridda – Alone with Her Dreams (2020)

Directed by: Paolo Licata | 99 minutes | drama | Actors: Tania Bambaci, Marta Castiglia, Nicoletta Cifariello, Claudio Collovà, Valentina Ferrante, Gerlando Gramaglia, Katia Greco, Loredana Marino, Maurizio Nicolosi, Ileana Rigano, Lucia Sardo, Federica Sarno, Mauro Spitaleri

Nowhere is the landscape more deceptive than in Italy: the more beautiful the scenery, the uglier often life. We speak of Sicily in the sixties of the last century, a land of peasant appearances and bitter hearts. Sex in alleys with children as silent witnesses. Keeping chickens to survive, chickens that are more important than their neighbors. Grannies handing out corporal punishment, that work. ‘Piccirrida’ has it all.

We see necessary passion and inevitable consequences, through the eyes of the young Lucia (Castiglia), who grows up with her stoic grandmother Maria (Sardo). The intimacy of this relationship is the core of the film, it is ambiguous – as is often the case with family, and at the same time offers a nice counterbalance to the harsh outside world. ‘Nonna’ tries to prepare Lucia for adulthood, but doesn’t want to lose her either – alternately caressing and beating, attracting and repelling.

‘This film is right’, you immediately think; editing and soundtrack go the extra mile. Like Sicilian life itself, the movie ‘Piccirrida’ has multiple gears. Somewhere along the way things drive into an abyss, you expect, with failing brakes or something. But none of that; save for a sudden jump in time at a late moment, the film remains faithful to its reflective character and powerful mise-en-scene, as a pastoral woman without a necessary plot.

Slightly less is the directing of the actors, which occasionally appears scripted. The originally Sicilian ‘protagonists’ are doing great, it can’t be that. And the decor always remains beautiful but immobile, like the social relations on the island itself. ‘Piccirrida’ was shot on Favignana, off the west coast of Sicily; also the place where the source text of novelist Catena Fiorello is set. You can’t deny director Licata an excellent sense of authenticity.