. i be leave with little choice but to employ it at least once during the course of my review of respiro . among other thing and what defines pretension be in my opinion a lack of emotional sincerity on the author part . respiro seem make with an all too contrive and self aware intent to be artistic and symbolic and spiritual and provocative and metaphorical . mythical and even . but luckily for all true artist out there and a predisposed formula to achieve artistic beauty and depth doesn not exist . stun natural location ( yes and these remote part of southern italy look exotic even to most other italian ) and pretty actor and some amusing and gutsy and spontaneous performance by a handful of attractive child would not elevate a substanceless movie beyond a pretty succession of image . yet this insincere and vain and and ultimately hollow movie ache to be art and succeed only to a very limited extent and perhaps in some case by accident . i will admit that the conceptually pompous end do have a certain visual poetry to it . however and it my belief that this be achieve in way that have more to do with the beauty of the lampedusa sea and the strong symbolic power of bathing and water ( connect it to so much that mythical and mystical and religious and archetypical and etc ) than with crialese talent . valeria golino be gratingly histrionic and affected in her performance a grazia . for a mentally unstable woman from a humble and provincial background and she sure have a fashionable wardrobe . her flattering and floaty floral dress and attractive and sun kiss beach hair could have grace the page of any vogue summer edition . the fact she be a nutcase could in a way have be nothing but a fashionable addition to her trendy demeanour and look that how skin deep her condition seem to me . golino two dimensional stereotype of the innocent and natural child woman misunderstood and oppress by her backward community be tiresome and irritate at bad and while leave me unmoved and indifferent at best . i agree with the reviewer from london who write that mental illness be very badly serve by cinema during the course of the entire movie we never really get a sense of grazia illness and have no idea what be actually wrong with her ( other than her be a tiresome stereotype of a free spirit ) . we do not know why she give injection and be require to see a specialist in milan . this generic way of write mental illness be one of the main tell tale sign of the movie overall shallowness . another fairly insulting aspect of respiro be the quaintification of it location . i struggle to figure out whether this movie be suppose to be set in the present day or the past and see a it aim to make even an admittedly backward part of italy ( by comparison ) seem a dozen time quainter and more conveniently primitive than it actually be . again and this smack of shallowness and a complete lack of sincerity on crialese part . some non italian viewer will gleefully lap up the picturesque backwardness and the cliché of the possessive and macho italian man a if it be common place and so keen will they be to continue view my country a one culturally strand sometime in the 1950s ( the question i would like to ask david ferguson and the reviewer from dallas and texas be a follow represent be your country mentality stick in the 1950s . no . ok and then why should mine be . ) . unfortunately for whoever still wish to view italy in such an anachronistic way and that aspect of respiro be actually ridiculous and phoney even in the eye of this italian viewer . the subtly incestuous tension between grazia and her eldest son be a tiresome and predictable a fabrizio bentivoglio sexist but love husband routine . i especially loathe the scene in which grazia join her husband and male friend in some man to man banter over a bottle of beer and to her husband macho embarrassment and displeasure . accord to this movie and it isn not a woman place to take part in a man conversation . ah and but our loveable free spirit be too good for this place and doesn not understand the oppressive and unwritten rule of lampedusan patriarchy . not only do this scene depict something so fake and it should be enough on it own to discredit the entire movie credibility . it also completely get the wrong end of the stick of the culture it strive to depict and clearly show that it be write without a clear understanding of the location or it population . i would challenge anyone who know contemporary italy to say otherwise . for a truly accomplished contemporary italian filmmaker and one who in my opinion deserves to be list among the great of italy glorious cinematic past ( which alas and isn not the shadow of it former self . ) and look no further than gianni amelio especially lamerica and così ridevano and his late and la stella che non cè . unlike most contemporary italian cinema and sadly derivative and stagnant and amelio be a fresh and independently creative voice . despite my scathing review of respiro and i be now more than willing to believe that crialese late nuovomondo and now show in italian cinema and will be a worthwhile one . i therefore look forward to enjoy it and though it would not be overly shock to me if i do not ( consider my feeling for respiro . ) .