Mini-Review: Half A Man [aka. Un Uomo a meta] (1966)

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a9/Un_uomo_a_met%C3%A0.jpg/220px-Un_uomo_a_met%C3%A0.jpg

Dir. Vittorio De Seta

A man in a suit, with a briefcase, is laid down in the grass of a recreational park. With psychological issues coming forward, he asks why he is there, beginning a trawl through past traumas. They involve his family and a potential love that reveals the isolation, caused by him and willingly allowed by him, that he is in within his mind as well as to others. Halfway through the film, after seeing only fragments, we see how he became who is he is fully.

De Seta for me so far has only been a figure of short documentary pieces, so to see this was such a drastic change of pace. An abstract film which eventually opens more and more, it plays off with a languid tone as the viewer is drip fed new memories. Shot in black and white, it has a woozy poetic tone as it shifts between what is imagined and what is actually happening. The print quality of the version viewed was not great, but it's clear De Seta made a film that is intentionally alien in presentation, with slow motion and slow paced editing to create a dramatic effect. The sense of a documentary filmmaker is making the film is clear by how he makes sure the scenes do not feel artificial but environments and moments you are drawn into. Ennio Morricone, able to shift into varying types of Italian cinema, contributes one of his most avant-garde scores to fit the nature of the film, drones and atmospheric sounds that adds to the sense the film is from the main character's self-analysing mind. 

The central drama itself is immensely engaging. At times even unable to say a word, the protagonist is literally half a man, the past revealed to the viewer showing that he is damaged by his upbringing but as much the result of who he is as a person since he was born. The characterisation has been seen before in many other films - of the mother disappointed in her son, the superior older brother, the distant and antisocial younger son - but the tone of the film gives the drama more effect because the abstract tone forces you to engage with the drama more when its finally given to you. After abrupt images of birds falling out the sky in slow motion are first seen, the original context of such images later makes them even more striking when tied to a key point in the character's memories. It is a shame the film is difficult to find, as it is the kind of intense, minimalist drama comparable to Michelangelo Antonioni, that is far more rewarding in that it makes the route of the truths as rewarding as the reasons behind the characters themselves.

From http://www.ljplus.ru/img4/k/u/kuporo_s/Un-uomo-a-meta__125624_04-3.gif