Maura Alpero has based her captivating second feature, a deserving grand jury prize-winner at Venice, on her family’s wartime experiences. The writer and director chronicles the hardships and eccentricities of an ever-expanding family, headed by its patriarch, Caesar (Tommaso Ragno), a proud teacher, and his perenially pregnant and much younger wife, Adele (Roberta Rovelli).
As the film opens they have seven children, who pile into shared beds and, often, a cramped schoolroom. The local doctor shrugs off the prospect of infant mortality when the youngest son falls ill: another one is on the way, he reasons.
Among their thriving daughters, the academically excellent Flavia (Anna Thaler) seems destined for bigger things and boarding school; the secretive Ada (Rachele Potrich) keeps a journal and bargains with God about pleasing herself behind the wardrobe. Many of the household chores fall to the stoical eldest girl, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi).
In the final months of the second World War, two fugitives from the frontlines – Attilio (Santiago Fondevila), a returning local, and Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), an outsider from Sicily – find refuge in the remote Alpine village of the title.
Lucia falls for the handsome stranger. Unexpectedly, their lovely, slow, almost wordless romance and joyful wedding become an unlikely source of sorrow. When the war ends Pietro journeys home to Sicily to find his mother. A pregnant Lucia waits for his return.
Simultaneously folkish and earthy, Delpero’s follow-up to the much-admired convent drama Maternal shares DNA with Small Body, Laura Samani’s equally remarkable tale of spiritual redemption.
Mikhail Krichman, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s regular cinematographer, finds gorgeous snowy tableaux among the vertiginous heights. The mostly amateur cast are impressive, with Martina Scrinzi a heartbreaking standout.
Vermiglio is on limited release from Friday, February 28th
