A Chiara

In Jonas Carpignano's final film in his trilogy, a fifteen-year-old girl confronts the local mafia.

The impression that one takes away after watching Jonas Carpignano’s A Chiara is of a film which loses its way. That is not to say that the piece is without merit – indeed, in two respects it is very successful indeed. First, there is the question of atmosphere. Like Carpignano’s The Ciambra which he made in 2017, this new film is set in Calabria and, although he himself was born in New York, his Italian roots have given him an acute ability to capture the lifestyle of the region with complete conviction. The Guerrasio family are the main characters in A Chiara and, while the film begins by introducing us to the 15-year-old Chiara (Swamy Rotolo) and her girlfriends, it soon embarks on a long sequence depicting a family gathering with much food to be seen. This is a birthday celebration for Chiara's older sister, Giulia (Grecia Rotolo), who is now eighteen and both tone and characterisation are precise in capturing the bonds of a close-knit family headed by the father, Claudio (Claudio Rotolo). Indeed, the bond between Claudio and Chiara is so well communicated that we can well believe that she is his favourite daughter (there is also a third child, Giorgia (Giorgia Rotolo), but she is still very young). The sense of place is equally potent when it comes to showing us the community in which the film is set and not least in the way that it makes us aware that Gioia Tauro is a port with its own well-established local mafia, the ’Ndrangheta. 

The other great achievement is the way in which Carpignano embraces the tradition of Italy's neorealist cinema of the 1940s and favours the use of non-professional actors. This was his approach in The Ciambra and it is so once again here: indeed, both films take this mode to unusual lengths by in each case casting members of a particular family to appear as a fictional family who make up the work’s central characters. As is apparent from my opening paragraph, the Guerrasio family are portrayed by members of the Rotolo family and Carpignano patently has a gift for obtaining persuasive performances from non-professionals. In addition, Swamy Rotolo, whose role as Chiara is as central as the title implies, has a very strong screen presence.

There were times in The Ciambra when it was not easy to grasp who was who among the members of its family, but no such issue arises here since the story is one that invites us to focus on the experiences of Chiara. They take on a new direction just after Giulia’s birthday party when she witnesses an explosion in the street in which her father's car is destroyed and then discovers that Claudio has disappeared. In no time at all this is being reported in the news together with a statement that a warrant has been issued and that Claudio is now a fugitive. It would seem that Chiara's father had been involved in drug-trafficking on behalf of the ‘Ndrangheta, something that Chiara had never suspected. That her mother (Carmela Fumo) should keep quiet about this is understandable enough, but other members of the family including a cousin, Antonio (Antonio Rotolo), are involved too and it does seem somewhat unlikely that Chiara could reach the age of fifteen without having some suspicion of her father's activities. Once you accept that, however, it becomes inevitable that in seeking to track down her father and to discover the truth about him, Chiara will be facing a growing-up process of unusual pressure and intensity.

Just how much Chiara will find out and how she will then respond becomes the promising backbone of Carpignano’s film, but I had a problem with it in that I found the way in which the story plays out became increasingly unconvincing. I can't go into details without revealing plot developments which should not be known in advance so let a generalised remark suffice: certain reactions on Chiara's part seem inadequately explained, the behaviour at one point of another key character struck me as unlikely and the attitude of the authorities ceases to play any role at all without any explanation being offered for that. By the close of this rather long film, I still admired its virtues but had become increasingly aware of weaknesses that for me undermined its credibility.

Footnote: Carpignano’s style is a world away from that of the late Jacques Demy but one wonders if he is planning to emulate the French director in one special and unusual respect. Just as Demy planned to make a series of films in which characters established in earlier works would reappear, A Chiara includes passing appearances that bring back characters from his first two features, Mediterranea (2015) and the previously mentioned The Ciambra. One waits to see if Carpignano will carry this forward and get further with the notion than Demy managed to do.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Swamy Rotolo, Claudio Rotolo, Grecia Rotolo, Antonio Rotolo, Carmela Fumo, Koudous Seihon, Concetto Grillo, Giorgia Rotolo, Pio Amato, Iolanda Amato, Patrizia Amato, Francesco Pia Amato.

Dir Jonas Carpignano, Pro Jon Coplon, Paolo Carpignano, Ryan Zacarias and Jonas Carpignano, Screenplay Jonas Carpignano, Ph Tim Curtin, Pro Des Marco Ascanio Viarigi, Ed Affonso Gonçalves, Music Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin.  

Stayblack Production/Rai Cinema/Haut et Court/Arte France Cinéma-Mubi.
121 mins. Italy/France/Sweden. 2021. UK Rel: 15 July 2022. Cert. 15.