Ricordati di Me: The Individual and the Community

The movie Ricordati di Me is an Italian film about an upper-middle class family whose bonds begin to disintegrate because everyone is so focused on themselves rather than on keeping the family together. Although being a foreign film, it has a powerful universal message that speaks to everyone. An interesting concept that is adressed in the film is that of the individual vs. the community.

We see in Ricordati di Me that the individual and the community are constantly at odds with one another, because throughout the film the community aspect of the family is lost; it is merely a group of individuals living together. In order for a family to stick together, it has to have one communal mind focused on strengthening their ties, which in turns means a sacrifice of one's individuality. In the Ristuccia family, the members place far more emphasis on their individuality than their community. With Carlo, he keeps his job which he hates to support his family, but when he finally quits his job and runs away with Allesia, we see he is finally happy. His family, the community, is holding him back from being an individual. He is unhappy with his family life. This can be interpreted to mean that we find our greatest happiness when we work on ourselves rather than when we work on one another.

At the end of the film, Valentina, Guilia, and Paolo all acheive their individual goals; Valentina is on TV, Guilia is acting, and Paolo has found a girlfriend and acceptance. In the final scene, when they take their family photo, we see that they're all genuinely happy. Carlo, however, has difficulty smiling for the camera; he feels he's once again tied down by family life, keeping him from acheiving his goals.

The director, Gabriele Muccino, portrays the necessity to be an individual in order to be happy. At the beginning of the film, we see the family cannot stand to be around one another, and they all have their own self interests and goals that are separate from a family communal mind. But we also see instances in which the community takes precedence over the individual, namely when Carlo is hit by a car, and his family is waiting for him and staying by his side. This could be interpreted to mean that tragedies are what bring communities together, because in times of distress people are rarely self-reliant.

The French New Wave

The French New Wave still influences directors today. The only movies I've seen by Quentin Tarantino are Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2, but it's clear to me what elements of the French New Wave were incorporated into those films. One similarity is the unconventional editing style. In Kill Bill, many of the scenes were out of sequence, such as in the beginning of the first movie we see Beatrix confronting the second person on her list of people to kill, Vernita Green, and it ends with her killing O-Ren Ishii, the first person on her list; a common characteristic of French New Wave films was a lack of continuity in the story line, but it worked well in order to tell the story the way the director meant it to be told. There are also many jump cut scenes in Kill Bill which are extraneous to the story, yet at the same time serve to tell the story fully. Another aspect the films share is the characters talking directly to the camera. However, a big difference between Kill Bill and Breathless is that in Breathless the dialogue was much more natural, but in Kill Bill, it was very eloquent and felt unnatural.

In both films, the villains of the stories died in similar fashions. When Michel is shot and Beatrix uses the 5 point palm exploding heart technique to kill Bill, music is played in the background to heighten the drama, and for both they walk to their death. When the villains die, the heroines of the films both appear to be somewhat underwhelmed, but we know that inside them, they feel closure because both their tormentors have finally died.

Elements of the French New Wave are also present in the film Amélie. The very obvious example is in the scene with Amélie in the movie, watching the French New Wave film Jules and Jim. Also in Amélie, Amélie looks directly at the camera and speaks directly to the audience, there are many jump cut scenes in the film, and some parts of the film can be enigmatic, such as Raymond Dufayel's painting. Like in the French New Wave, Amélie not only served to entertain viewers, but also to break norms of traditional filmmaking and convey a deeper message.

The French New Wave has a lot to contribute to contemporary filmmaking. With Hollywood pumping out one pleasant yet insipid romantic comedy and action-packed film after the other, there seems to be a dearth of movies with real substance that lies beneath the plot. That's not to say there aren't any really good movies out there, but that mainstream films are created solely to entertain and make money rather than being created to produce art. Going to the movies would be a much more enriching experience if current films were more unconventional and ended with more mystery.