Last updated on February 21, 2024
A film by Margherita Vicario
With: Galatéa Bellugi, Carlotta Gamba, Veronica Lucchesi, Maria Vittoria Dallasta, Sara Mafodda, Paolo Rossi, Elio, Natalino Balasso, Anita Kravos, Vincenzo Crea
It is late 18th century in Venice, and in a convent school for girls Teresa, a girl with prophetic gifts, joins forces with some amazing music-makers. They create a new kind of music that is pop, bright and bold, and challenge the ancient and rigid system.
Our rate: **
A lovely, highly topical subject, which lacks neither bounce nor narrative ambition, but spoiled by a Gaumont film treatment that renders it perfectly impersonal and attenuates its force. The theme itself could have evoked a world that had to change, a feminist revolution, put the spotlight on a little-known part of the history of art, and of history, and in so doing, questioned the relevance of a history constantly written by the dominant, or even to revise this history. What’s more, in addition to the filmic process of taking an interest in a changing world, the subject lent itself magnificently to cinematographic treatment, with the focus on a universe where music takes pride of place and constantly overflows. But Jane Campion isn’t at the helm, and the film is riddled with errors of taste (from the watered-down treatment to the astonishingly pop and unpleasant musical compositions, or the way the plot reveals its first secrets). On the plus side, there are a few nicely choreographed musical moments, where the image follows the music (clip-style) rather than the other way around, and the metaphorical evolution of Galatéa Bellugi’s character, who starts out as a mute, expressing herself, showing off her little-known talents, finding her place, sharing the honors with others, and denouncing, in her own way, the exactions of which she was the victim. A new world, purged of what should never have existed, in line with what the #meToo movement wants to establish.
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