In Eternal Visionary director Michele Placido’s biopic takes us through the life of one of the 20th century’s most influential writers, Luigi Pirandello.
Death in Private
by Alexa DalbyEternal Visionary
[rating=3]
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
Pirandello (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) was a huge international influence on playwrights such as Beckett and Sartre. It is hard to overestimate his importance in Italian literary history.
Eternal Visionary, shown at the Rome Film Festival, takes place on Pirandello’s train journey (in a private carriage) in 1934 from Hamburg to Stockholm to collect his Nobel Prize for Literature. Alone during this dark night of the soul he relives his life, its misery and horrors, which he transforms into art; the dramatic characters he created in his work come to life and he remembers his impossible love for his much-younger departed muse, actress Marta Abba (Federica Vincenti).
The film skates over his flirtation with Fascism and Mussolini, concentrating instead on his private life, his wife’s (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) mania and committal to an asylum, his neglected children as adults, and recreating his plays, mainly the scandalous first-night performance of his Six Characters in Search of an Author and also Diana e la Tuda.
Theatre director Michele Placido directs the film as a straightforward biopic of a great man and his life as he ages through the years. For those who only know Six Characters in Search of an Author, it is very interesting to put it in its transgressive historic context. It is also interesting to see the life of such an influential playwright shown on screen, right up to his acceptance speech, but those who already know the story will learn nothing new.
Eternal Visionary is a very competent biopic but it’s not world-shaking – unlike its subject.
Eternal Visionary screened at the Rome Film Festival 2024 on 18 October 2024. International sales are by Pulsar and representation by The PR Factory.
