DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY: Lina Wertmüller
PRODUCER: Romano Cardarelli
PRODUCTION CO: Euro International Film, Labrador Films
PHOTOGRAPHY: Giuseppe Rotunno
EDITOR: Franco Fraticelli
MUSIC: Nino Rota, Carlo Savina
WITH: Giancarlo Giannini (Antonio Soffiantini 'Tunin'),  Mariangela Melato (Salomé), Lina Polito (Tripolina), Eros Pagni (Spatoletti), Pina Cei (Madame Aida), Elena Fiore (Donna Carmela)

AWARD: Best Actor (Giancarlo Giannini), Cannes 1973

REVIEW

“Love and Anarchy”…  is credited with putting director Lina Wertmuller’s career in fast motion. It also raised her profile in another way – feminists hated the film, and Wertmuller was branded a traitor to her sex thereafter…

The film follows Tunin (played by Wertmuller’s usual leading man, Giancarlo Giannini), an idealistic bumpkin with a taste for anarchy, as he stumbles forward in a plan to assassinate Mussolini and topple the fascist government. His handmaiden in this alternately slapstick and desperate adventure is Salome (Mariangela Melato, another Wertmuller staple), a mouthy prostitute and closet revolutionary. Their headquarters is a bawdy Rome bordello populated by a lusty mix of characters.

It’s this harem of hookers that got Wertmuller into trouble. Feminists bristled at the way she presents them, how her camera (in Fellini-esque ways) settles on their exposed bodies, distorting breasts, hips and legs. Their wantonness is as ripe as it gets.
 
Feminists thought it was all too ripe, in the end demeaning women as cynical sex objects. Wertmuller called the criticisms silly and proclaimed herself a guardian of women’s rights. Her portrayal was truth-telling, not subversive vulgarity; the film only emphasized the culture’s fascination with women as erotic symbols.

Her defense makes sense. Wertmuller’s hookers seem to know more than anyone else in this movie; they’re a step ahead of everything. Especially Salome, and even the younger Tripolina (Lina Polito), who falls in love with Tunin on the eve of his assignment. In their own way, they’re as heroic as he is…

– LA Times

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Dunedin   
Wednesday, 12 May, 7:30pm

​​Auckland   
Monday, 5 July, 6:15pm

​Hamilton   
Monday, 12 July, 7:30pm

Canterbury     
Monday, 13 September, 7.00pm
CLASSIC & CULT CINEMA selection >>