BREAD AND TULIPS
(Pane e Tulipani)
Silvio Soldini (2001)
Bread and Tulips (Pane e
tulipani), directed by Silvio Soldini, focuses on a
middle-aged housewife who embarks on a spontaneous journey
that allows her to redefine her role as a woman by teaching
her about life's most simple and essential pleasures.
Left behind by a tour bus carrying
her husband and sons through the outskirts of Rome,
Rosalba's (Licia Maglietta) first instinct is to call her
husband's cellular phone and try to coordinate a meeting
point down the road. However, when all she hears is his
disdainful reproach, her mood is deflated and the displaced
woman decides to end her vacation and simply return home
before the rest of the family. As she hitches a number of
rides home, Rosalba suddenly finds herself sharing short but
somewhat intimate moments with several strangers; an
experience which allows her to position herself in new and
uncompromising roles. Yet when she spontaneously decides to
take a detour to Venice, where she develops her skill of
repeatedly missing the bus home, the long-oppressed woman
tastes the freedom of her independence, and discovers a new
friend in a masseuse named Grazia (Marina Mazzironi), and a
potential love in the always poetic Fernando (Bruno
Ganz).
Bread and Tulips explores
the transformation of its female protagonist. After an
initial introduction that quickly establishes her
ordinariness, the film slowly evolves as the camera
accompanies Rosalba out of her guilt of having temporarily
abandoned her family. This "passage" from guilt toward
freedom is represented by several dream sequences,
especially one where Rosalba's mother-in-law seems to
approve of her new life. Other dream sequences --where her
husband and sons visit her in her new home-- emphasize the
inadequacy of the men's unwanted presence. Rosalba's sad
state, caused by her dominating and chauvinistic husband, is
only revealed as she begins to compare her traditional life
to her new life in Venice. Sprinkled with a modest degree of
humor and an overly romanticized perspective, Bread and
Tulips nevertheless charms the viewer as it communicates
a noble message about the need to remove oneself from the
meaninglessness of daily life in order to appreciate its
full worth.
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