It’s Easier For A Camel…
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B-
Actress/director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is still one of
the rare actresses who has directed herself and found acclaim in the process
with It’s Easier for A Camel… from 2003. As a matter of fact, one of the only other recent memorable
incidents of this is with Barbra Streisand and Yentl back in 1983. Like that film, the story involves a daring
female character and what is or is not appropriate, with religion looming in
the background as a disturbing mixture of inspiration and oppression.
Here, Tedeschi is Frederica, a free spirit of sorts who
has lived off of inherited money for as long as she can remember. Now unmarried and in her 30s, she is staring
to wonder where her life will go next.
Does she need a man? What is her
future? How much of a man’s world is
it? Then there is the title, which
deals with the proverb about how hard it is to have a happy afterlife, assuming
one exists. This corresponds with male
troubles in the film.
She has dreams and fantasies, many tied to the arts, but
can they be fulfilled? Is part of this
just heaven on earth hopes? The film
never becomes melodramatic about this to its credit, yet it does not ask
alternate questions. She and other “capitalists”
are questioned about their “bourgeoisie delusions” as if certain person’s ideas
of “reality” were so crystal clear.
That she is having a crisis about happiness while having money is a good
point, yet the unhappiness is not because of the money. The film never addresses these issues to its
detriment, but it does make of some interesting viewing, if uneven. This is Feminist enough, though some in that
field of thought would argue that if she were more liberated, she would get
away from all the dysfunction and try someplace new. But then, we would not have a movie, which does go on longer than
expected.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image has a limited
color palette and detail limits. This
was shot by cinematographer Jeanne Laporie, offering nothing extraordinary,
though some brief animation during the beginning was amusing. Despite being a Dolby analog SR release,
this DVD’s Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtrack offers no surrounds of any kind. Extras include some deleted scenes and trailers
for this and four other New Yorker releases.
- Nicholas Sheffo
