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The Italian goddess of the canvas had been missing from the scene for ten years. The fact that he now returns in the Netflix movie “You Have Life Before You” is thanks to his offspring.
Sophia Loren plays a Holocaust survivor in Bari.
Mothers are said to have a special relationship with their children. Sophia Loren, mermaid, screen goddess and “National Mother”, seems to be no exception in this sense. In her long career, the two-time Oscar winner has mimed the entire spectrum, from maternal Madonna to delightful ballerina in frivolous Italian comedies and serious occupational dramas. But his last appearance in a feature film was more than ten years ago.
In 2009, in the Hollywood musical “Nine” – a tribute to Federico Fellini’s “Otto e mezzo” – Mamma Fatale, the leading director (Daniel Day-Lewis), who was in a creative crisis, straightened his head. A year later, she played her mother, Romilda Villani, in the biopic “My house is full of mirrors”. But since then there has been almost total abstinence from turning around.
Now «La Loren», the greatest Italian film diva, is back on the screen – or rather: on the screens. Loren’s new feature film “You have life in front of you” celebrated its premiere at the Rome film festival. But the rights for the film adaptation of Romain Gary’s French novel La vie devant soi belong to Netflix.
Proven duo
However, it was not the American streaming service that was decisive for Loren’s return, but Edoardo Ponti, Loren’s second son from his marriage to film producer Carlo Ponti. The 47-year-old, born in Geneva, directs “You Have Life Before You” and co-wrote the screenplay.
This isn’t the first time Loren has been in front of her son’s camera. Already in 2002 he took part in Ponti’s feature film “Between Strangers” – it was his 100th film appearance. In 2014 Loren then interrupted her hiatus for Ponti’s short film “The Human Voice”.
Sophia Loren and her son, the director Edoardo Ponti.
“You Have Life Before You” is about a Holocaust survivor and former prostitute who takes care of the children of neighborhood prostitutes for a small salary. The material has already been filmed. The classic “Madame Rosa”, which takes its name from its protagonist, starring Simone Signoret, was screened in cinemas in 1977 and the following year was awarded the Oscar for best foreign language film.
Ponti says he had his mother in mind for the cast of Madame Rosa from the start. A role that the now 86-year-old Loren plays as a rough leg, with little makeup, but all the more composure and nerve. Direct, honest, but essentially vulnerable, just like the world star has always been. The American press is already thrilled with her appearance and believes Loren has a chance of a third Academy Award. And indeed: even today, this irresistible aura of Loren surrounds you, a mixture of simple, glamor and grandeur.
Homage to Loren’s origins
Loren explained that Rosa reminded her of her mother, who raised Loren and her sister alone as an unmarried pianist in ultra-conservative and fascist Italy.
Unlike “Madame Rosa”, Ponti did not stage the plot in the Parisian entertainment district of Pigalle like the novel, but against the backdrop of the coastal town of Baris. A tribute to the origins of the mother, who grew up not in Puglia, but by the sea, in the popular Neapolitan district of Pozzuoli. Loren was only 15 when she left Pozzuoli to conquer first Cinecittà in Rome and then Hollywood.
The story is told in warm and sunny images in retrospect by Momò (Ibrahima Gueye) – short for Mohamed – a Muslim orphan boy from Senegal who tries to establish himself in the alleys of Bari with petty crimes. Until he steals from Rosa and she welcomes him.
Forms delicate bonds: Momò (Ibrahima Gueye) and Madame Rosa (Sophia Loren).
Not only does this unlikely duo gradually form delicate bonds, but also the ice between Momò and the antique dealer Mr. Lost boys in the nursery of Madame Rosa and the cheerful night worker Lola, played by the Spanish transgender actress Abril Zamora, a star of the LGBT scene and known as the author of the Netflix series “Elite”.
Barely addressed complaints
The film adaptation of the novel is the story of Momò, at the same time that of a neighborhood and its strange inhabitants. If you met them in real life, they would make the world a little better. Although Ponti transfers his remake to the present, the whole thing has little to do with reality. No social claims are negotiated here. Ponti’s work also hides the risk of being torn apart in current debates as a prime example of cultural appropriation.
Of course, it was meant differently, namely as a utopian alternative to sobering factuality. Packaged in the form of a modern fairy tale with a universal character, evil appears here as a parable, for example in the form of the drug kingpin Ruspa, while virtuous friendship transcends the boundaries of religion, culture and age.
For some it will serve as a balm for the soul in Crown times, for others it will be too good a thing. In any case, 15-year-old Ibrahima Gueye, a real discovery, brings the film with grit and charisma even through mellow passages. Anyone who watches “You’ve Got Life Before You” for a reunion with “La Loren” won’t get Gueye out of his head anytime soon.
“You have life in front of you” (Italy, 2020), 94 minutes. Directed by Edoardo Ponti. From November 13 on Netflix.
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