RESPIRO (2002) **

Reviewed 3/14/03

With luscious seaside vistas and observant details about youthful play and intransigence, RESPIRO is a marvel of potential greatness in its first half.  The story concerns a young mother, Grazia (Valeria Golino of RAIN MAN fame) with three children, Pasquale (Francesco Casisa), little Filippo (Filippo Pucillo), and teenage Marinella (Veronica D’Agostino), and a fisherman husband, Pietro (Vincenzo Amato).  She herself behaves like another petulant child with extreme mood swings, and her loony eccentricity makes her the dark sheep of Lampedusa, an island near Sicily.  Sophomore writer-director Emanuele Crialese fills his film with lively moments - rival boy gangs who strip each other, Grazia embarrassing Pasquale and Filippo by swimming topless at the beach, Marinella’s romantic moment with a local cop ruined by her brothers and their friends, the boys building towers of refuse to be lit for a festival – but it also has a certain flatness, a by-the-numbers feel, and the movie lacks dramatic cohesion.  Is this Pasquale's story or Grazia's?  A gang fight in an empty pool apparently exists only to add color.   The second half becomes more plot-driven as Grazia seeks to evade being sent to a doctor in Milan, but ironically, the film also begins to meander more at this point, as if searching for a resolution which it never really finds.  Still, every time Crialese lets those translucent blue-green waters into the frame, the imagery is mesmerizing.