Ferdinando and Carolina (Lina Wertmüller, 1999)

Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (Silvana De Santis) with her daughters in Ferdinando and Carolina

Cast: Sergio Assisi, Gabriella Pession, Nicole Grimaudo, Lola Pagnani, Silvana De Santis, Matt Patresi, Carlo Caprioli, Yari Gugliucci, Mario Scacci. Screenplay: Lina Wertmüller, Raffaele La Capria. Cinematography: Blasco Giurato. Production design: Enrico Job. Film editing: Pierluigi Leonardi. Music: Italo Greco, Paolo Raffone, Marcello Vitale.

For a time in the early to mid-1970s, Lina Wertmüller was one of the hottest directors in the world, becoming among other things the first woman ever nominated for an Oscar for best director. The film, Seven Beauties (1977), also earned her a nomination for screenwriting. And then somehow her reputation, at least in the United States, faded. She had signed a five-film contract with Warner Bros. to make movies in the English language, but the first of them, A Night Full of Rain (1978), was a box office failure and the contract was canceled. She continued to make movies in Italy, but they received little attention in the United States. Ferdinando and Carolina wasn't released theatrically here, but was available on a DVD. I caught up with it on the Criterion Channel. It's a lively and opulent historical comedy-drama about the marriage of Ferdinando of Naples and Maria Carolina of Austria -- one of the 11 daughters of the Empress Maria Theresa and, incidentally, a sister of Marie Antoinette. There is a certain frenzied, over-the-top character to all of Wertmüller's films, and Ferdinando and Carolina is no exception. It consists of the reminiscences of Ferdinando, King of Naples, as he lies on his deathbed. That most of these memories are sexual is no surprise. Although he was reluctant to marry Carolina, especially after the deaths from smallpox of two of her sisters, and she was equally reluctant to marry him because his portraits showed him to be a man with a large nose, they take to each other almost instantly on their wedding night. Eventually, court intrigue and their own love affairs take a toll on the marriage. The principals, Sergio Assisi as the young Ferdinando and Gabriella Pession as Carolina, are appropriately handsome, and they throw themselves into their roles with abandon. As history, the movie is no better than most, lacking any center but the libidos of its principals, but it has a kind of energy that carries one along. And it features some spectacular interior and exterior scenes shot in various Italian locations, so that the major honors of the film really belong to production designer Enrico Job.