I Knew Her Well by Antonio Pietrangeli

Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli) is a naïve girl, who moves to Rome from the countryside to pursue a career in cinema, but ends up being exploited and deceived by every man she meets: her agent Cianfanna (Nino Manfredi), who is supposed to help her find a job, a young man from a respectable family, her writer lover, and many, many others. She is spontaneous and good to everyone, but also misunderstood.

Joachim Fuchsberger and Stefania Sandrelli

So, despite her cheerful nature, she has to face solitude and disappointment, not only with her love life but also with the film business, represented by the star Roberto (Enrico Maria Salerno) and the failed actor Baggini (Ugo Tognazzi). Together with Pietrangeli and Ruggero Maccari, Ettore Scola signs the screenplay of this movie, creating an intense story. It is the last film to be released before Antonio Pietrangeli's death, and one of the most underrated by the Italian director. I New Her Well won the Nastro d'Argento prize for best director, best script, and best supporting actor for Ugo Tognazzi, who skilfully offers a pathetic portrait of an actor at the rock bottom, a victim to the show business just like Adriana. After five years from La dolce vita by Fellini, I Knew Her Well presents the film business in a completely different way: it is a condemnation of this business as a vulgar and cruel environment.

Adriana during her interview

But there is more. Adriana sums up all of Pietrangeli's female characters, a good-hearted working-class girl — shallow only to an inattentive viewer — swallowed up by the big city in which, thanks to the economic boom, she is able to make herself a position. The price to pay is isolation and alienation, captured by the camera and juxtaposed to popular songs of the time.

Still of Stefania Sandrelli as Adriana Astarelli

The sequence I find the most impressive is the one in which a memory of Adriana is shown to us: it is her last memory of her sister, a moment she has already mentioned, but that now comes back to strike her with the violence of a regret, of an action whose consequences she cannot take back. Adriana left the countryside and her family to pursue her dream, but she has failed and her sister is dead. She cannot go back: likewise, the sugar she throws in the beer makes the liquid fizz off the rim of the glass.

Adriana and her sister

​Director: Antonio Pietrangeli

Writers: Ruggero Maccari, Antonio Pietrangeli, Ettore Scola Cast: Stefania Sandrelli, Mario Adorf, Jean-Claude Brialy, Joachim Fuchsberger, Nino Manfredi, Enrico Maria Salerno, Ugo Tognazzi, Franco Nero Year: 1965

#cersosimo #film #Pietrangeli #director #pieces