La Sconosciuta | Italy | 2006 | Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
Logline: A determined woman begins working for a wealthy family, befriending the young daughter in her mission to uncover a sad and shocking truth.
Irena (Xenia Rappoport), a Ukranian woman, arrives in the Italian city of Velarchi. Soon enough she finds work in an apartment building as a maid to an affluent family, and then as their nanny she befriends the young and fragile daughter Tea (Clara Dossena). But Irena is plagued by haunting and brutal flashbacks, and the past soon catches up with her.
Piece by piece the enigma of Irena’s harrowing former life becomes clearer, as the jumps between flashback and the present tense reveal sections of her ghastly experiences at the hands of a vicious black market pimp, who profits from selling beautiful babies to wealthy couples who cannot bear their own. Irena has been driven to obsession through desperation and yearning.
Tornatore is a masterful storyteller, and, like his brilliant mystery jigsaw thriller A Pure Formality, he melds the sensual with the visceral, a vivid expressionist. Co-scripted with Massimo De Rita, it is a Hitchcockian tale barbed with cruelty and sorrow, yet draped with moments of exquisite tenderness and beauty. A dark and mysterious mother’s journey made fascinating by the clever balance of tactile and ephemeral elements.
From the enigmatic opening scene where Irena is naked and masked alongside several other young women, being scrutinised by an unknown selector, through to the end of Irena’s duplicitous and dangerous quest, this is confronting and powerful cinema, with a fittingly dramatic and emotional score courtesy of Ennio Morricone.
The original Italian title refers to a stranger, someone incognito. For its American cinema release it was initially slapped with the misleading The Other Woman, later adjusted for its home release to more closely resemble the original. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the 2008 Academy Awards and won numerous European awards.
Rappoport and Dossener are extraordinary, both delivering brave and compelling performances. Also of note is Michele Placido as Mold, Irena’s nemesis. But much of my admiration is for the elaborate fabrication of the tale, the carefully constructed narrative, the alarming lengths Irena will go to; from the strange relationship she forges with young Tea, the tenacity of her mission, to the horror of her revenge, and painful life choices and final revelation.
Ultimately, The Unknown Woman is a story of grief, endurance, and the burning beacon of hope. Life’s bitter twists proving perseverance is a tunnel to inner peace. It’s a movie with a tenuous grasp on integrity, but consummately made.