Cut-Rate Maturity

And then there is the pseudo-adult film —the film that looks reality in the face, only doesn’t know two things: which way is reality and where is its face. Take, for example, Franco Brusati’s foolish To Forget Venice. Nicky, an aging but still youthful homosexual, comes from Milan to the country house of his beloved sister Marta with his young lover, Picchio. Marta, a retired operatic diva, has brought up Anna as her daughter, and Anna, in turn, has taken in her underprivileged friend Claudia, who, eventually, became her mistress. The household revolves around the theatrical, gravely ill, drug-taking, but still energetic Marta, whom everyone calls “aunt,” though she is aunt to no one.

The group goes to dinner at an outdoor inn; Marta is persuaded to sing for the clients, and she and Nicky even perform a dance. Nicky is accosted by the childhood chum he adored, now, depressingly, a petty-bourgeois paterfamilias. A proposed trip to Venice does not materialize, as Marta’s illness worsens and she succumbs. The household becomes hysterical, but a senile maid regains her senses and keeps things going. Picchio, who quarrels with Nicky, finds Anna semi-nude in the attic and tries to have sex with her; even though she decks him out in female frippery, she can’t go through with it. The ancient retainer reverts to senility and is packed off to her native village. Ostensibly to start a new life, Anna and Claudia go to Milan with Picchio, Nicky having decided, at the last moment, to stay at the country house to bury his youth, which he has finally outgrown.

JS

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John Simon

And then there is the pseudo-adult film —the film that looks reality in the face, only doesn’t know two things: which way is reality and where is its face. Take, for example, Franco Brusati’s foolish To Forget Venice. Nicky, an aging but still youthful homosexual, comes from Milan to the country house of his beloved sister Marta with his young lover, Picchio. Marta, a retired operatic diva, has brought up Anna as her daughter, and Anna, in turn, has taken in her underprivileged friend Claudia, who, eventually, became her mistress. The household revolves around the theatrical, gravely ill, drug-taking, but still energetic Marta, whom everyone calls “aunt,” though she is aunt to no one.

The group goes to dinner at an outdoor inn; Marta is persuaded to sing for the clients, and she and Nicky even perform a dance. Nicky is accosted by the childhood chum he adored, now, depressingly, a petty-bourgeois paterfamilias. A proposed trip to Venice does not materialize, as Marta’s illness worsens and she succumbs. The household becomes hysterical, but a senile maid regains her senses and keeps things going. Picchio, who quarrels with Nicky, finds Anna semi-nude in the attic and tries to have sex with her; even though she decks him out in female frippery, she can’t go through with it. The ancient retainer reverts to senility and is packed off to her native village. Ostensibly to start a new life, Anna and Claudia go to Milan with Picchio, Nicky having decided, at the last moment, to stay at the country house to bury his youth, which he has finally outgrown.