Sara Mai and her brother Giorgio live different lives, both characterized by a sense of restlessness.  She lives in Milan, where for the past ten years she has been trying to make a name for herself as an actress;  while he, suffering from uncertainty for his tomorrow, often returns to their hometown called Bobbio. Even the little Elena lives there (the daughter of the second), in the large family home that is run by two elderly maternal aunts.  Following a stay in Milan, she returns as a teenager to her aunts, who in the meanwhile have taken the professor in as a lodger (who is overwhelmed by the anguish of being abandoned by her boyfriend during final exams at school).  Eventually the whole family is gathered together to witness a strange ceremony:  in fact, their old friend Gianni is dipping into the ancient local river, dressed up in a tuxedo…
“Sorelle Mai” was filmed (along with the students from six editions of the Fare Cinema workshop) over the course of nine years (between 1999 and 2008).  The film narrates the growth of a little girl, through six episodes, who in real life is actually the director’s daughter.  By revamping his medium-length film called “Sorelle” (presented at the 2006 edition of the Rome Film Festival), Bellocchio has produced an intense and heart-felt movie marked by a rare creative freedom.  Midway between reality and fiction, blending together professional actors with associates and relatives, the Piacenza-born director muses over his own cinema – with flashes from “I pugni in tasca” (aka “Fists in the Pocket”, 1965), filmed in his own home – in this “film by coincidence” that is transformed into an engaging professional and pedagogical challenge.  The images possess a certain kind of modest tenderness, capable of being revealed without any fanfare (for instance the relationship between Giorgio and his niece, especially in the scene where he plays with the child shortly after informing his sister of his own personal failures):  this is a film that travels through reminiscences of the past without ever allowing nostalgia to prevail. It is often literary (Giorgio reads Chekhov, Sara recites Shakespeare, not to mention their friend Gianni who is a Puccini buff), yet with its gentle levity “Sorelle Mai” takes on testamentary tones, culminating in a tormenting finale:  the “man wearing a tuxedo” disappears into the waters of the Trebbia River, followed by the song entitled “Vecchio frac” (old tuxedo) by Modugno. The time to abolish the mother has elapsed; now they can wait, reconciled, for the moment to leave.

Francesco Troiano