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Plot: A young East European prostitute-turned-cleaning lady is intent on carrying out a mysterious mission in Italy.
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:June 3, 2008Disappointing, muddled film from Giuseppe Tornatore ("Cinema Paradiso") about a former Eastern European prostitute who travels to Italy as a cleaning lady to search for something she lost long ago. Told partly in flashback, "The Unknown Woman" convolutes time and wallows in unpleasantness. Improves as it goes on, but overall it's just not very compelling or emotionally satisfying.
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MCT:May 27, 2008LA SCONOSCIUTA – THE UNKNOWN *** ½
By way of Hitchcock and some De Palma, celebrated Italian auteur Giuseppe Tornatore has created a deft little thriller that also acts as social commentary without ever compromising on suspense. In a film this craftily edited and superbly filmed, Tornatore sets a brooding dim tone early on and keeps a dark tension throughout the film.
Perhaps heavy handed at times, in Tornatore’s still clever mystery, Irena, as portrayed by Russian Xenia Rappoport, is a Ukrainian immigrant with an awful secret, desperately seeking domestic work in a new country. She is also forcibly trying to forget her traumatic past that nonetheless seems to catch up with her. In time she insinuates herself as the maid and nanny to a curiously wealthy family and soon bonds uncomfortably with the family’s little girl. Nothing is exactly as it seems and even the revelations in this yarn are surprises in themselves, even once you think you have them all figured out.
All part of Tornatore’s master plan, with a touch of early Polanski as well, the director, who also wrote the script, seems busy imitating the style of grand guignol cinema while broaching a delicate subject matter - some will say insensitively and crudely - that seemingly becomes the catalyst to the logic behind most of the action. In many ways, THE UNKNOWN cannot be the suspenseful film it is without the socio-political agenda that sets its story in place.
Fine dramatic turn from star Rappoport (who won the Italian Oscar for this role – one of five prizes it took last year, including Best Film, Director, and for Ennio Morricone’s original score), she eerily reminds one of a younger Judy Davis in her tragic yet aggressively appealing demeanour. Rappoport has a not only a striking face but an entire body to match that seem, together, to possess vulnerability and guarded survival instincts at once. Equally matched by a beautiful & powerful Claudia Gerini as the woman who at first entrusts the stranger and welcomes her into her family’s lives only to, later, regret it. And then there’s a startlingly awesome performance from young Clara Dossena who supplies equal weight in all of her verbal duels with Rappoport. Most incredible are the disturbing scenes in which Rappoport’s character educates the youngster in the art of self-preservation.
Tornatore may have comprised for his art, creating an imperfect film precisely because he selectively overcomplicated matters, in what seems to be much his grand scheme to keep the mystery going in lieu of the social commentary. Still like the more difficult 500-piece jigsaw puzzle, the film’s complexities do keep the audience startled, if not frustrated with anticipation, and guarantees that not once will its interest wane. In this respect, Tornatore, who has not made a film since 2000’s MALENA, confirms that no matter the genre he is still very much in top form and in control of making movies for audiences - at least his type of middling highbrow audiences – that will run to see his films, no matter the genre, so long as his name is up above the marquee. -
MCT:April 28, 2008
Stylish and well-paced - never a dull moment, though there are a few that don't make much sense. Always check references - always.
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MCT:April 28, 2008
Not as surprising as it claims to be, but still a well-told story that held my attention until the end.
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MCT:April 12, 2008
A pesar una tragedia de principio a fin la pelicula logra llevarlo a uno en esa intriga que es la vida de Irena, interpretada por la rusa Kseniya Rappoport de forma magistral.
Es la historia de una prostituta ucraniana llevada a Italia y todas sus multiples desgracias. En un punto llega a ponerse aburrido pues empieza a competir con Chris Gardner, el interpretado por Will Smith en "The Pursuit of Happyness", a ver quien puede ser mas desgraciado en esta vida. Tuve la misma sensacion de aburrimiento pues cuando le dan tanto palo a un personaje ya llega un punto que aburre y en esta pelicula de hora cincuenta Tornatore gasta cien minutos en la desgracia de esta mujer.
Con todo y lo aburrido que pueden ser cien minutos de desgracias la pelicula alcanza a ser buena porque denuncia, una vez mas, el problema con los ucranianos/as que son explotados de todas las formas posibles en al Europa todo poderosa, como si la gran Ucrania no hubiera sufrido bastante con polacos, rusos, nazis y Chernobil ahora la miseria a hecho de su gente piltrafas humanas.
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