Entertainment

Film review: Indivisible

Photo of Angela and Marianna Fontana in Indivisible

One of the highlights of this year’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival is Edoardo De Angelis’s faultless and beautiful film about co-joined twins.

One of the highlights of this year’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival is Edoardo De Angelis‘s magnificent work Indivisible. Set, as many of this year’s films are, in economically depressed urban Italy, it tells the story of Daisy and Viola: beautiful, 18 year old co-joined twins, played superbly by Angela Fontana and Marianna Fontana.

Literally joined at the hip, the twins garner local celebrity through singing songs written by their father (Toni Laudadio) and through donations from the church, who use the twins as a religious draw-card. The considerable money they make is used by their father to feed his gambling addiction and by their mother (Antonia Truppo) for drugs and an endless array of kitchen appliances “Why the hell do we need a nutella-warmer?“.  The two girls are, naturally, very close, yet have quite different personalities. When one of them feels the beginnings of a sexual attraction to a man, she starts to campaign for them to be separated.
The unusual story-line is told with such naturalism and authenticity, thanks in part to a faultless screeplay by De Angelis, Barbara Petronio and Nicola Guaglianone,  that the initial quirkiness fades within the first few minutes. This authenticity is also underpinned by the outstanding production design by Carmine Guarino. 

Throughout, Ferran Paredes cinematography never misses a beat, and much of the drama is driven through his use of Big Close Ups.

This piece is impossible to categorize. It floats seamlessly between deep emotion and black comedy; between jolting reality and mythical narrative.  The characters are all rounded, flawed and real. The tension is held at just the right level, and released with precision timing. The ending is gut-wrenching and beautiful and perfect.

This is one of the most complete and faultless pieces of cinema I have seen in years.

Indivisible next screens on September 26th at Palace Nova Cinema.

Check out the full Lavazza Italian Film Festival program here.

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