“Primadonna” or the rebellion of a young woman against “reparative marriage”

THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WE CAN AVOID

Sicily, 1965. In a rural village, Lia, an uneventful young woman who lives with her peasant parents. Lorenzo, the son of a local boss, has a habit of flirting with her, becoming more and more insistent. Because she refuses his advances, Lorenzo decides to kidnap her to take her by force, forcing Lia to follow a disastrous custom, the “reparative marriage”: to save her honor, a rape victim must marry her attacker.

Primadonnathe first film by Italian director Marta Savina, has the honorable program of recounting the rebellion of Lia, determined to put an end to this custom from another age and to seek reparation – on the same subject, we think of the sumptuous Alone against the mafia (1970), by Damiano Damiani.

Cruel comparison, so Primadonna turns out to be a pale feminist dissertation which sacrifices everything to its good cause and, for all intents and purposes, is content with a televisual neorealism. Furthermore, it is difficult to believe in the painting of this rural Italy of the 1960s, the fault of which lies in a cruel lack of incarnation and an anachronistic approach, which consists of placing on an era a story of very feminine emancipation. contemporary.