Clare of Assisi yesterday and today and a focus on the new Pinocchio by Del Toro

“Bare your head,” Elder Balvina says. “They won’t be able to do anything to you.” And indeed, the father breaks in to take back his rebellious daughter Clear, who has chosen to join her friend Francesco at the Porziuncola, but stops before her decisive gesture that reveals her cut hair, an act of a penitent which not even the patriarchal order can oppose. In the magnificent film of Susanna Nicchiarellishot more than a year and a half ago and in cinemas since 7 December, the similarities with today are incredible: the “tonsed” hair (the language is a fascinating Umbrian vernacular from the 1200s) and the sacrificed locks, the rows of women who move in unison abandoning the sumptuous clothes, and still the torn veil, the choirs of the ladies who betray for Chiara, for her revolution, the paternal and marital power, on the period notes recovered by the Anonimi Frottolisti musical group.

The film is simply titled Clearwithout the adjective Santa, the young and talented protagonist Margaret Mazzucco (in the photo above), a rebel in search of frugal spirituality and female emancipation, who is embarrassed by her own “miracles”: “I didn’t want to be called Santa, I didn’t want to frighten people”. The founder of the Poor Clares stands up to the pope (Luigi Lo Cascio) in imposing the Female Rule, shares the Canticle of the Creatures with Saint Francis and in the end, however, accepts the shadow of a defeat: the Church will accept her Rule, but in exchange calls for the observance of the clause.

The film is shot in magnitude, dreams and visions with Gothic gilding, compositions of Giotto-esque shots and, conversely, the very wide gaze over the countryside from the Porziuncola to San Damiano, in an exaltation of the chorus and union between all creatures. Will we destroy poverty? In the meantime, Chiara tells us, let’s share it, let’s experience it. A message that is more timely than ever, very sweet and terrible, made even more vital by the inspired Sisters, above all Carlotta Natoli and Paola Tiziana Cruciani, and by Andrea Carpenzano’s tormented Saint Francis. Clare does not give in to rhetoric, there is even a curse word in the canticle which closes on a “miraculous” ending. At the root of everything are the books by Chiara Frugoni (to whom the film is dedicated), especially the beautiful An Inhabited Solitude. Clare of Assisi (Laterza). In short, have faith, there is so much to read and see.

Pinocchio in dark

Netflix

Does Chiara touch current events? It is no less the Pinocchio from Guillermo Del Torooverwhelming surprise stop motion in theaters from December 4 and on Netflix from 9: the Mexican director builds an even darker, very grotesque version of Collodi’s fairy tale: there is the talking cricket, the blue fairy vanishes, the puppet, just roughed out, is a frail and ugly branch without even a little dress of crumb.

The whale is impressive, death impersonated by the black rabbits is frightening and takes us to a mystical afterlife from Mexico and clouds. Garbage, the enslaved and bullied chimpanzee, breaks our hearts. Prominent news: Pinocchio lives at the time of Mussolini’s rise, replaces Geppetto’s heart with his son who died under a bomb in the great war and is the only one, unconsciously, to make fun (even scatological) of the Duce in a fez, seen as a memorabilia from Predappio. Seeing is believing. In the cast of original voices Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, music and songs by Alexandre Desplat.

Clare of Assisi yesterday and today and a focus on the new Pinocchio by Del Toro