“Tornare” (“To Return”) is not only the title of Cristina Comencini's new film — it is also the longing of a sector brought to its knees by lockdown. We spoke about it with the director in this interview.
It was due to be released in cinemas on 12 March, but, like a great many other films, Tornare by Cristina Comencini was halted by lockdown. Streaming gave it "a second chance" — during this period of emergency it has been offering film productions an alternative route.
Facing a future that remains deeply uncertain, Italian cinema is trying as best it can to stay afloat. The health emergency has dealt a severe blow to the entire entertainment sector, leaving more than six thousand direct workers in the film industry alone without a job. Among the initiatives launched to break this impasse is the national project Moviement Village, spearheaded by the entire Italian film supply chain, with the aim of reopening as many venues as possible over the summer — primarily open-air ones — in compliance with the protocols required by the epidemic.
Attention was also drawn to the sector's crisis by a flash mob organised by Anec (the national association of cinema exhibitors) on 8 May, under the hashtag #riaccendilcinema. For one evening, many of Italy's 1,600 cinema screens lit up their signs and screens again, to send a symbolic message and highlight "the urgency of a strategic plan to relaunch the sector". The event took place meaningfully in conjunction with the ceremony for the 65th David di Donatello Awards, hosted by a solitary Carlo Conti via web link with the nominees. That too was an opportunity to shine a light on the crisis that has struck all entertainment workers, who could also count on the solidarity expressed through a lengthy letter from President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.
Adding her voice to this chorus is Cristina Comencini, a female standard-bearer in a predominantly male sector and a long-standing advocate of civil rights and gender equality.
Known for her family stories and her portraits of women — from Va dove ti porta il cuore to Il più bel giorno della mia vita and La bestia nel cuore (which earned her an Oscar nomination in 2006) — this time the director (who is also a screenwriter, author and playwright) has made her first thriller of the unconscious. A film set in a mystery-laden house and in a Naples that is "emptied and almost metaphysical", which echoes sensations and states of mind that feel extraordinarily familiar during this period of domestic confinement and social distancing. The magic of cinema. We feel it in the title too — Tornare (To Return) — so evocative of that collective longing and hope of which the seventh art seems here to have unwittingly become a mouthpiece.
At the centre of the film is Alice (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), a woman who, following her father's death and after a long absence, returns to the family's large villa. There, in a breathtaking location on the sheer cliffs above the sea at Posillipo, the past will come looking for her, through the "materialisation" of memories and through the presence of a mysterious, fascinating man (Vincenzo Amato).
As if solving a puzzle, Alice must piece together her life in a dreamlike journey that will take her into the depths of her memory and bring her literally face to face with her younger and teenage selves (played by Clelia Rossi Marcelli and Beatrice Grannò). The result is a dense and compelling dialogue — painful and redemptive in equal measure.
In your director's notes you wrote that Tornare is your "freest film". What did you mean?
I have always made more realistic and linear films, even if there was always some element beyond reality within them. In this case, however, since it is a thriller of the unconscious — linking things from the depths to elements of reality — it proceeds through successive associations. In that sense I had greater freedom in the construction of the writing and the filming, because we are in territory where one is not obliged to be too rational or anchored to reality.
This film also marked your reunion with Giovanna Mezzogiorno, after the great success of La bestia nel cuore in 2005. What was it like to find each other again after fifteen years?
Yes, it's true — we hadn't worked together since then, but we always stayed close.
I thought of her for the lead role almost immediately. Giovanna is one of the most convincing actresses in a dramatic role. She is very deep and "multi-layered". She lets many things about herself show through without saying them, and that is where the emotion she conveys comes from. It is always as though she is somewhere else, beyond what she is saying.
At the end of Tornare there is a dedication: "to C.B." Who is it?
A very dear friend who is no longer with us and who lived through a story similar to that of the protagonist. She too knew the trauma of a youth cut short, which one then pays for throughout one's life. I dedicated it to her even though she, unlike Alice, unfortunately was not able to live her redemptive journey through to the end.
Many themes dear to your filmography recur in this film. For instance that of repression, which is present in La bestia nel cuore too, as well as the focus on stories of complex and often painful family bonds.
Yes, the theme of repression was there in Il più bel giorno della mia vita as well, from the grandmother's perspective regarding her son's homosexuality. In real life too it is as though the family always contains very significant unspoken things. As though the bond — so strong, so complicated and so primal — generates secrets. Our homes can prove to be places that are too closed in on themselves: on the one hand they protect us, on the other they fill us with dread. And that can lead to repression, as psychoanalysis explains.
Speaking of homes that both protect and fill us with dread. Here the family villa is the central setting of the story and becomes almost a character in its own right. And the streets of Naples are emptied and ghostly. In these times one cannot help but sense a kind of premonition of what we are living through…
That's true. It's something that happens often with cinema and literature. With La bestia nel cuore too we tackled themes that very soon afterwards became topical (paedophilia and family abuse, ed.). It is as though the intuition of the imagination — which brings together and connects invisible threads — anticipates reality. I think also of Nanni Moretti's film Habemus Papam, made before Ratzinger's resignation…
The film was supposed to open in cinemas on 12 March, but lockdown made that impossible. How did you arrive at the decision to offer it on streaming, and how is it going?
One of the reasons we decided to offer it on the platforms is precisely that Tornare tells of a great journey inside a home and a deserted city — so, in a sense, it mirrored the conditions we are actually living through. We know that during the first evenings the film was acquired in very large numbers, more than expected. That means there was probably a great desire on the part of the audience — not just for my film, but for new stories in general. On the other hand, since we couldn't go to the cinema, over these months we've worked through everything that was available online…
There is an ongoing debate about the choice to offer films on streaming. Some argue there is a risk of alienating audiences from the cinema and of having no compelling offerings when theatres reopen. What do you think?
When cinemas reopen there will be many — perhaps too many — films that will need to find a slot in the schedule, because a huge number have piled up over these months. So streaming will help to free up space. Then at some point there will be the problem of producing new ones.
The world of entertainment has been severely tested by this emergency. Thousands of workers and crew members have found themselves without work, often without any social safety net. How can we get out of this situation?
The fundamental thing is to start thinking right away about how to restart. We should open round tables with industry professionals, and investments should be allocated to restore existing venues — now that they are still closed — and to open new ones, especially in the south, where there are very few. Unfortunately, culture tends to be left until last, but the government should address it as soon as possible.
What marks will this deeply dramatic period leave on cinema in terms of content? What inspirations do you think will emerge?
I believe that cinema, unlike journalism, should not immediately latch onto current events, but rather relaunch the feelings that have resurfaced over these months. So the interesting thing would be to build stories not about the epidemic, but ones that take into account what we have thought, felt and lived through during this period. For instance, our relationship with a frenetic pace of life that no longer exists today, or our relationship with boredom, with emptiness, with the people beside us, and with the enormous growth of the virtual in so many aspects of our lives. All these things can feed in — not so much directly into a narrative, but into our experience as human beings and, as a result, make their way into the writing.
This is a film that is almost entirely female — direction, screenplay, cinematography, lead roles. A rare thing in cinema. You have fought for civil rights, and for women in particular, for many years — have you seen any changes, perhaps since the Me Too movement?
Despite everything that has been done, I will say that women in cinema are few. Both in the creative crafts and in the stories that allow actresses to play great roles. So it is still something that needs to be watched closely, because it is not automatic. What is automatic is the slide backwards, to a world in which women are absent. It is essential to keep pushing so that things change.
We also ask you to send us your personal "postcard from the future". What is your message of hope from a post-coronavirus world?
My hope is that the experiences we have had over these months — which have brought our private lives, our relationships, health, fragility, love and solitude back to centre stage — will be taken on board and placed at the heart of investment by governments. All these things, which have suddenly become the centre of our lives, are at one and the same time our strength and our weakness. And they are aspects in which we women are the protagonists, as we have always held down two jobs, outside and inside the home. For the future, I hope for a society in which these values are also placed at the centre of social and political life.