Seven Beauties (Lina Wertmüller, 1975)

Giancarlo Giannini in Seven Beauties

Cast: Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Elena Fiore, Piero Di Iorio, Enzo Vitale, Roberto Herlitzka, Lucio Amelio, Ermelinda De Felice, Biaca D'Origlia, Francesca Marciano. Screenplay: Lina Wertmüller. Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli. Production design: Enrico Job. Film editing: Franco Fraticelli. Music: Enzo Jannacci. 

As a student of literature, I was called on to memorize the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, avarice, sloth, gluttony, and lechery. But I don't think I was ever made to recall the corresponding virtues, which the medieval church categorized as humility, kindness, patience, charity, diligence, temperance, and chastity. Our age has added another to the list of virtues: survival. We speak of "survival of the fittest," which has caused us to couple fitness with health as the supreme necessities for survival. One of our most popular TV shows, now in its 45th season, is Survivor, the reality competition show that has a motto: "Outwit. Outplay. Outlast." Which brings us to Pasqualino Frafuso, aka "Settebellezze" or "Seven Beauties," the protagonist of Lina Wertmüller's scarifying satire Seven Beauties. Pasqualino commits almost every one of the seven deadly sins all for the sake of survival. He outwits, outplays, and outlasts the worst that can befall him in Europe under the heel of the Nazis, lying, killing, raping, seducing as the means to an end: staying alive. And of course we loathe him for it, while at the same time questioning what we would do in the same circumstances. Seven Beauties is an unsubtle film, and its lack of finesse in character and situation works against its ostensible aim as a moral fable. It makes a feint at seriousness of purpose by introducing a sympathetic character, Pasqualino's friend Francesco (Piero Di Iorio), and a moral exemplar, the anarchist Pedro (Fernando Rey), but the dominant note of the film is a sour nihilism. Giancarlo Giannini's performance as Pasqualino would be a standout in any film: He's introduced to us as a Chaplinesque caricature of a strutting dandy, and for a while it's fun to watch him go from bad to worse, as in his efforts to dispose of the body of a man he has killed. But soon a queasiness sets in, as we wonder how much lower this worm can crawl. There should be no redemption for a Pasqualino, but instead Wertmüller gives us a cynical ending, suggesting that Pasqualino will repopulate the Earth with his own kind, in his own words, "A rotten comedy, a lousy farce, called living."