| Seven Beauties | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Lina Wertmüller |
| Produced by | Arrigo Colombo Lina Wertmüller |
| Written by | Lina Wertmüller |
| Starring | Giancarlo Giannini Fernando Rey Shirley Stoler Elena Fiore Roberto Herlitzka |
| Music by | Enzo Jannacci |
| Cinematography | Tonino Delli Colli |
| Editing by | Franco Fraticelli |
| Distributed by | Koch-Lorber Films |
| Release date(s) | May 4, 1975 |
| Running time | 115 min |
| Language | Italian |
Pasqualino Settebellezze (English title Seven Beauties) is a 1975 Italian language film written and directed by Lina Wertmüller and starring Giancarlo Giannini in the main role. Fernando Rey and Shirley Stoler are also featured. The production design and costume design were by the director's late husband, Enrico Job.
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The picaresque story follows its protagonist, Pasqualino (Giannini) who, as a dandy and small-time hood in Naples, to save the family honour, is sent to prison for killing a pimp (and then dissecting the victim and placing the body in suitcases) who had turned Pasqualino's sister into a prostitute. Convicted and sent to prison, Pasqualino succeeds in being transferred to a psychiatric ward. Desperate to get out, he volunteers for the Italian Army, but then somewhere in Germany he deserts with a comrade. They are captured and sent to a concentration camp. There, in a bid to save his own life, Pasqualino decides to gain the sexual favors of the obese and ugly female commandant (Stoler). His plan succeeds, except for the fact that he is then put in charge of the barracks as a kapo, and is obliged to select six men to be killed under the threat that if he doesn't do so, they will all be killed. Pasqualino ends up executing the soldier with whom he was captured and being responsible for the death of another fellow prisoner, a Spanish anarchist. At the war's end, upon his return to Naples, Pasqualino discovers that his seven sisters, his fiancée and even his mother have all survived through prostitution.
The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay. Wertmuller was the first woman ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director.
The subject of the film is survival. It was controversial at the time for its graphic depiction of concentration camps. In his 1976 essay "Surviving", Bruno Bettelheim, while admiring the film's artistry, severely criticizes the impression it makes of the experience of concentration camp survivors. [1]
Shirley Stoler's character was based on Ilse Koch, notoriously known as "the Bitch of Buchenwald". The wife of the camp's commandant Karl Otto Koch, she took sadistic pleasure in torturing inmates, and was accused of having lampshades made out of their skin, though these charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.
Giancarlo Giannini starred in three other films Wertmuller made during this period: Love and Anarchy, The Seduction of Mimi and Swept Away.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075040/
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