Divorzio all'italiana (1961)
Directed by Pietro Germi

Film Review

Better known under its English language title Divorce Italian Style, Divorzio all'italiana is a scathing assault on Italy's out-dated divorce laws and the male chauvinistic attitudes that prevailed in Italy in the early 1960s.  Despite its highly contentious subject matter it was an instant hit and proved to be one of the most successful Italian comedies of the decade.  The film won an Oscar for its screenplay and features Italian heartthrob Marcello Mastroianni in one of his most entertaining roles, that of an effete Italian nobleman who is prepared to go to any lengths to get rid of a cumbersome wife, which invariably means murder since divorce was not only illegal in Italy at the time, it was also the most heinous social taboo.  When he made the film, director Pietro Germi was better known for his social dramas and Divorzio all'italiana started out as a serious piece of social commentary before Germi was gradually persuaded that it would work better as an outright satire.  It is a measure of the film's enduring popularity and historical importance that it was adapted into an opera by Giorgio Battistelli in 2008.

Divorzio all'italiana is not only a deliriously funny send-up of contemporary Italian society it is also a superbly well-crafted piece of cinema, as elegantly photographed as any other film in this golden age of Italian cinema, and directed with unwavering aplomb by Pietro Germi.  The Brilliantine smoothness of Mastroianni's performance (no doubt a hangover from his previous role in Fellini's La Dolce vita) underscores the languorous venality and stupefying fecklessness of his character, making him one of the most tragic and amusing figures in Italian cinema.  Ferdinando's surreal flights of fancy as he imagines the wicked ways he can dispose of his wife (which include sending her up in a rocket) provide the film with its humorous highpoints, but there is just as much fun to be had when his well-planned scheme to end his loveless marriage goes repeatedly awry.  That we end up siding with Mastroianni's morally deficient character is at least partly down to an equally memorable performance from Daniela Rocca, who makes such a nauseous wife that you can't help egging Ferdinando on, even when Fate seems resolutely determined to thwart his attempts.  Of course, no crime goes unpunished and the film ends with a deliciously cruel coda, a caution perhaps for any who sought to follow Ferdinando's example.  It is hard to quantify the extent to which the film altered Italian attitudes towards divorce in the 1960s, but divorce did at last became legal in Italy in 1970 and was endorsed by a public referendum four years later.

Film Synopsis

Baron Ferdinando Cefalu is a Sicilian nobleman who has fallen on hard times and reached a crisis point in his life.  The descendant of one of the island's most important families, he leads an idle existence as his relatives carelessly fritter away the last remains of his fortune.  He has long fallen out of love with his wife Rosalia, a crude and simple-minded creature who seems to enjoy embarrassing him in public.  Now it is Angela that he loves, a beautiful young woman who captivates him with her youth and vitality.  Ferdinando yearns for Angela, but whilst Rosalia lives she will always be beyond his grasp since divorce is illegal in Italy.  Ferdinando consoles himself by imagining ever more fantastic ways he can rid himself of the odious Rosalia.  Then, one day, he learns of a court case in which a woman was shown clemency when she was tried for killing her husband upon discovering he had been unfaithful to her.  If only he could arrange for Rosalia to be found in a compromising position with another man Ferdinando could have reasonable grounds for murdering her.  Fortune smiles on the baron when his wife's former amorous admirer Carmelo Patanè returns to Sicily...