Paint an attractive composed picture of Italian theater legend Eleanora completed (1858-1924), festival favorite Pietro Marcello has for its latest function changed an underdog that strives to achieve – as it has seen in the 2019’s “Martin Eden“-For an Achiever Striving to Maintain. In a post-war Landscape Where Everything is Uncertain, The Decades-Strong and SINCE-RETIRED ACTRESS ELEANORA DUSE (VALIERIA Bruni Tedeschi) Announces Annouces Her Return to the Stage, signaling, signaling, signaling, signaling, signaling, signaling, signaling, signaling, signaling, signaling the start of a singling, signaling the start of Grip on her passions whilst her relationship hips with those she loves and is loved by disintegrate around her.
It should be noted that Eleanora Dus is a historical figure that there is very little documentation. Hardly anything was recorded by her spectacle or voice, which is why Marcello – who has equally worked in documentary forms over the years – has chosen a fictional exploration of her life. It is a pity that the figure he causes is so one -dimensional. Brown GermansWho has a striking resemblance to historian Mary Beard in this role, plays doses with a constantly raised voice and wild -eyed joy for theater which is initially unpleasant parodic.
Her leading presence is undeniably powerful, but we get a little to root her intensity. Marcello himself admits in filmPress notes that filming of the theater scares him, and unfortunately it shows. “DUSE” suffers for the lack of quest that it and its inhabitants are alleged to care so passionately. When the scene is finally set to a repetition, Marcello’s approach doubts. “I didn’t learn to scream without losing my voice just to be heard to lower it” screams Gabriele d’Anunzio (Fausto Russo Alesi), creative and romantic partner for Eleanora Duse, when he scares and trains a new member of the company. For the first act of Marcello’s film, you would think that the director had impressed this idea as a mantra for himself. It is difficult to understand someone or grow sympathy for them when they will not stop screaming at you, and when the whole world a maximum scene for the ensemble of “Duuse”, an emotional answer is difficult to get.
As he enters this equation as a salve, Noémie is Merlant, the film’s prominent performance and real emotional core, who plays Eleanora’s soft -spoken daughter, Enrichtta. Often depicted to come in and out of boats, the clear blue sea that patch behind her, she never stays for a long time. She is thrown away by her mother, who wants nothing to disturb her theater. In an almost surrounding early scene, she is denied entry into Duse’s new games, forced to go with her children on a trailer. It is a pity that the film’s script, imprisoned by Marcello and co -author Letizia Russo and Guido Silei, sidel lines her just like Eleonora does.
There is a real feeling that “Dus” has been structured on the wrong way. We are introduced to the supposedly legendary figure of Elenora Dus and her desire to return to the stage before we have even seen a glimpse of her perform on one. The increase in fascism breaks her as a disease, and culminated with a personal invitation from Mussolini himself, but we have dealt with countless scenes of Eleonora’s psychosis before we get a contextual explanation of what feeds it. The gradual cementing of this satisfactory micro-micro-orall does a little to counteract the nature of the one-note in the central performance that must endure during the hour preceding it, although “Duuse” can play more immediately and understandably for a domestic audience. Archive films seem to be split between scenes instead of external establishment of shots, but if anything, these glimpses are frustratingly exciting, which means that we may wonder what a deeper deepening in the world about Eleonora may have clarified about her life and the theater that she strives to perform.
All this is presented in a continuous stream, where characters will note the overall time to each other, their conversation extends over years in a few minutes to a disoriented effect that becomes poignant in the film’s final action. Eleanora’s psychosis has richer significance when the actor slows down and characters are forced to confront each other – and themselves. Bruni Tedeschi is in a game on a woman for a long time, and the movie finally has a chance to sing when Merlant returns to the picture.
A brief post-screening internet search by Eleonora Dus reveals that she was dabling in film acts, and almost worked with DW Griffith. In her later life, she was a partner to Lina Poletti, one of the first lesbian women in Italy. But none of these absent sections fits the too stylish, proven narrative arch found in Marcello’s film. There is an exciting thread to pull on in the mother-daughter relationship, which could have been expanded earlier-in the end it is too late.
Rating: C+
“Duse” premiered at 2025 Venice Film festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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