Critical notes

At five years old, she was already on the set, visiting her father Vittorio and becoming acquainted with cinema. She found herself situated between the discipline of actors and the industriousness of the technicians, dedicated to creating a wonder on the set. Two extremes that Giovanna Mezzogiorno will take possession of in a career marked by the seriousness of her approach to work coupled with her ability to personally dive into stories, searching for emotions to be experienced and conveyed to the audience. Indeed, few actresses like her can embody both determination and fragility, pain and awareness of reality, viewed through those eyes capable of containing entire worlds.

For acquiring skills, her first great school was the theater in the mid-1990s in Paris with Peter Brook, who had previously worked with her father (Vittorio had in fact performed in Brook’s The Mahabharata, both the stage version and the impressive film adaptation). With her transition to the big screen, her personality caught the eye of Sergio Rubini stirring up fairy-tale impulses. With The Bride’s Journey he evokes distant eras, rewrites geography and imagines new social relationships between a humble stable boy and a noblewoman. Giovanna is the bride, revealed by the wind that blows the veil from her face and opens new horizons to life and adventure. And yet, Michele Placido realized immediately that behind that angelic face, strong emotions lay hidden. From the very title, Del perduto amore (Of Lost Love), he understood that only she could play Liliana, capable of embodying dedication to a cause, political fervor, a passion for different perspectives on the world, and naturally, the profound teaching and love of and for the life of the protagonist Gerardo. This is undoubtedly one of the finest characters in Italian cinema over the last thirty years, which reveals intensive acting and a realistic urgency that not surprisingly has earned her several awards (Silver Ribbon, Golden Ciak, Pasinetti Award in Venice).

From there, her path led to increasingly complex roles, where she mastered the impetuosity of emotions with an ability to embody the guardian of narratives and realities. In Facing Windows, Ferzan Ozpetek cast her as a witness to a story buried in time, similar to a ghost tale, filled with concealed truths and forbidden love stories. Gabriele Muccino, with The Last Kiss, places her at the heart of a tangled web of relationships and emotions that bind the characters. Cristina Comencini with Don’t Tell entrusts her to confront and depict the pain of a tragic past marred by family violence (for this role, she won the Volpi Cup in Venice). Giovanna Mezzogiorno has approached these roles with the dedication of a person who believes that the problematic nature of the world is an ideal litmus test for revealing the complexities of life –seriously and without banality—facing the most difficult challenges straight on. In Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere, for example, she portrays Ida Dalser, Mussolini’s repudiated lover, who ends up in an asylum. Here, her pure acting style enhances every micro expression, with a technique for supporting lengthy sequences and countless pages of memorized script, thus achieving an authentic performance that uncovers both history and the inner torment of a brave soul.

In this way, her presence becomes a custodian of cinematic truth that resonates in her collaboration with directors who have recognized her talent early on, such as the Ozpetek’s Naples In Veils or Cristina Comencini’s Feel Your Memories The same holds true for roles with other significant Italian directors, from Gianni Amelio’s Holding Hands to Ivano De Matteo’s The Dinner to Daniele Luchetti’s The Ties, where the recurring themes are the complexity of emotions and the unveiling of life’s real challenges, in both social and family contexts.

Recent years have brought about a diversification with her choices: she voiced a Disney character (the python Kaa in Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book, voiced by Scarlett Johansson in the original version) and made her directorial debut with the short film Unfitting. In this work, she highlighted—through a satirical lens and a spirited call for change— the obsession with beauty and the unattainable standards of physical perfection in contemporary society and cinema, effectively contrasting it with the carefree innocence of childhood still free from such anxieties. Her most recent release is her first book, Ti racconto il mio cinema (Let Me Tell You About My Cinema), where she illustrates the craft and art to younger generations. The text was written with the enthusiasm of someone who has been devoted to cinema for her entire life and has never lost her initial passion, while on the cover we find her eyes framing the world—once again possessing a powerful statement of purpose.

Davide Di Giorgio

foto di Gianmarco Chieregato – courtesy Saverio Ferragina