Il vestito da sposa (2003) User Reviews

Moody exploration fizzles due to structural weakness

[Chris Knipp · 7 January 2005]

CORRECTION: This comment DOES contain spoilers

The direction of Fiorella Infascelli's Il vestito da sposa (The Wedding Dress) has some original touches and it's a good cast, but they're undercut by poor pacing and a weak ending. Il vestito da sposa is the story of a woman who calls off her wedding because she's just been raped, and then unknowingly falls in love with one of the rapists -- who happens to have designed and made her wedding dress. He then gets run over by a bus just at the moment when she discovers the truth about him. It's an unusual theme, with too easy and convenient a resolution. What's interesting is to watch the laser-sharp energy of Maya Sansa as the bride; the beautiful and much-in-demand young actress makes the character's sudden changes of mood totally convincing; and likewise worth watching is Salvatore Lazzaro as Andrea the dressmaker/rapist/suitor, who's compelling creepy and not a simple villain by any means. Lazzaro makes Andrea's ambiguous nature believable, but Andrea turns out to be too complex a character for this meandering, low-energy film to develop, and the situation has nowhere to go: hence the fake resolution of the cop-out ending.

Shown at the NICE (New Italian Cinema Event) festival in San Francisco in November 2004.

A very good idea in a very bad movie

[manu-ska · 1/10 · 17 August 2003]

I saw recently this movie in Locarno Film Festival. It wasn't the first work of the director (Fiorella Infascelli), i hoped to see a nice italian comedy-drama plot... and the idea in the beginning was not stupid... the bad bad situation of a young girl livin' in country side that some days before her marriage is raped by a band of haunters. She starts to live a difficult situation with the mother and with the boy-friend. Soon she falls in love with a handsome boy, "casually" the one who was in the raper gang. He has to live this difficult situation too: loving her but knowing the indicible past of group-violence on her. I don't want to show the epilogue for who will see the movie in the next month, but i can say that the end is very bad, it's a final that transforms the all movie in a b-movie: a simple epilogue that underlines the impossibility of Fiorella Infascelli to get the right conclusion of her story. The worst movie seen in locarno 2003 Emanuele Scansani

Very nasty indeed

[MikeL90 · 2/10 · 13 September 2006]

I found this movie surprising nasty - not because of the (medium shot) gang rape or the emotional plot twists. Rather, the existence of the very first scene which allows us, the audience, and the rapists to know more than our hapless heroine, well in advance of the tame denouement. I fact, I asked myself repeatedly why this rather gorgeous young woman would snap out of rape victim mode and into love mode to embrace ANY man for years. She surely would have needed some serious psychotherapy. And we get to revel in Stella's declaration of love to her unknown rapist. Sheeesh, not good!

The music is haphazard with sonorous electronica counterpointed with poppy irrelevant ditties. Totally random. The acting is adequate but the direction is woeful. This is very alarming as the director has worked with the likes of Bertolucci, Pasolini and Nanni Loy. Did she learn nothing about editing? She learnt how to jump cut though...(a la Hitchcock) so irritating... in three scenes. Random - unnecessary. Pasolini would be turning in his grave.

Not your mother's love story.

[Mozjoukine · 6 November 2004]

To go with the stalker heroine of SPETTATRICE, current Italian movies give us a sensitive pack rapist here, not the first in their films either.

Director Infascelli whose other work I must seek out, knew what she was doing. This one wouldn't play with a chicken thieving lead. It makes most of what we get in English seem pretty pallid.

Sansa who was the chic, self possessed lead of BONGIORNO NOTTE is transformed into a scruffy trainee vet in the small town that the hoon gang members call a posta di merda. The film shows the isolation and mediocrity which produces their attitudes with conviction that manages to stay just outside realism, despite all detailed location filming. It is no small tribute to the makers' skill that the leads do become involving and the outcome of their relationship generates suspense.

Performance, shooting and unexpected choice of music make the dodgy content compelling.