Seven Beauties
| Seven Beauties (of Tavel) | |
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Italian theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Lina Wertmüller |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | Lina Wertmüller |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Enzo Jannacci |
| Cinematography | Tonino Delli Colli |
| Edited by | Franco Fraticelli |
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Production
company |
Medusa Distribuzione
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| Distributed by | Medusa Distribuzione |
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Release date
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Running time
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115 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
Seven Beauties (Italian: Pasqualino Settebellezze) is a 1975 Italian language film written and directed by Lina Wertmüller and starring Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, and Shirley Stoler. Written by Wertmüller, the film is about an Italian everyman who deserts the army during World War II and is captured by the Germans and sent to a prison camp, where he does anything to survive. Through flashbacks, we learn about his family of seven unattractive sisters, his accidental murder of one sister's lover, his imprisonment in an insane asylum, his rape of a patient, and his volunteering to be a soldier to escape confinement. The production design and costume design were by the director's late husband, Enrico Job.
For her work on the film, Wertmüller became the first woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, a feat not matched again until 1993, when New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion was nominated for The Piano. The film received three other Academy Award nominations, including for Best Foreign Language Film, and one Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Foreign Film.
The picaresque story follows its protagonist, Pasqualino (Giannini) who, as a dandy and small-time hood in Naples, to save the family honour, is sent to prison for killing a pimp (and then dissecting the victim and placing the body in suitcases) who had turned Pasqualino's sister into a prostitute. Convicted and sent to prison, Pasqualino succeeds in being transferred to a psychiatric ward. Desperate to get out, he volunteers for the Italian Army, but then somewhere in Germany he deserts with a comrade. They are captured and sent to a concentration camp. There, in a bid to save his own life, Pasqualino decides to survive by providing sexual favors to the obese and ugly female commandant (Stoler). His plan succeeds, except for the fact that he is then put in charge of the barracks as a kapo, and is obliged to select six men to be killed under the threat that if he doesn't do so, they will all be killed. Pasqualino ends up executing the soldier with whom he was captured and being responsible for the death of another fellow prisoner, a Spanish anarchist. At the war's end, upon his return to Naples, Pasqualino discovers that his seven sisters, his fiancée and even his mother have all survived through prostitution.
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Wikipedia