I love a heavy-handed foreign film: subtitles and hitting you over the head with repeated and unrelenting imagery. When a friend recommended “La Sapienza” a few years ago, I was eager to watch it. Admittedly, I found it a bit melodramatic and was not keen at first. As years go by, however, I find myself drawn back to the film.
It is a masterpiece, commentary on Baroque art that is itself unapologetically Baroque. Released in 2014, it is the project of American expatriate director, Eugène Green. The film is the story of a renowned French architect, Alexandre, at the height of his career yet afflicted by a sense of emptiness and estrangement from his wife, Alienor. When Alexandre announces plans to travel to Italy to finish a lifelong research project on architect Francesco Borromini, Alienor invites herself along.
The couples’ stilted communication and side-by-side travel is interrupted in a small Italian town when they befriend brother and sister Goffredo and Lavinia. Alienor is delighted to learn that Goffredo aspires to be an architect and volunteers her husband to take him on the trip to Turin and Rome to view Borromini’s major works. Alienor stays behind to check on Lavinia, who is afflicted by mysterious fainting spells.
Goffredo and Lavinia are perfectly symmetrical foils to the world-weary and disillusioned married couple. They proclaim again and again in different ways that the important things in life are light and people. Soaring shots pan the faces and interiors of Baroque churches. Sun shines through windows and candles glow through the night. It’s all shockingly straightforward.
I enjoyed this review from 2015 that describes the film well:
“La Sapienza” strikes this reviewer as easily the most astonishing and important movie to emerge from France in quite some time. While its style deserves to be called stunningly original and rapturously beautiful, the film is boldest in its artistic and philosophical implications, which pointedly go against many dominant trends of the last half-century.
Rather than apologizing for or “deconstructing” Western tradition, “La Sapienza” celebrates the West’s spiritual sources to the point that it might be called an apotheosis of European culture.
“La Sapienza” is a strange and beautiful film that stays with you. With so much fixation on darkness and the grotesque, this is a work of art that aspires to beauty: harmonious music, tight shots of exquisite architectural design.
The vicissitudes of life and confused people have a way of leading you astray. How do you make decisions that lead you to what you ultimately value most? Do they bring you toward light and people? Far from being abstract, these questions are practical. We can train ourselves to recognize the thoughts and actions that render us isolated, confused, and unhappy. While it is not all about our short-term emotional happiness, a life of sustained joy is possible when we find meaning. Meaning is found in beauty and interacting with other people.
I struggle to put into words what this film inspires, but I can say with confidence that the experience of watching it is worth it. A must-watch film for those who long for beauty is “La Sapienza.” When faced with questions of meaning and decisions that become muddled with bad advice and the opinions of miserable people, you can say with Goffredo: “La luce!”
It is that simple: light and people.
