For fans of Vitti in Antonioni films like Red Desert, with a soft spot for Britain in the swinging 60s, this is a delight. I especially liked the beginning and the ending and the pastiche of Antonioni's industrial sound tracks during the scenes in Sheffield against the backdrop of the coal fired power plant in the middle of the city and the "black houses" lined up in soot covered terraces. Vitti even sings. The cast of British male actors is top notch. Tony Booth gets to drive a etype Jag, Stanley Baker the Rover that came with bucket seats in the back as well as the front and Corin Redgrave something grand. There are scenes from British life like an Edinburgh bourgeois party, a gay bar in Bath (although the film uses the argot of the day, queer), an English class for immigrants (from the Caribbean as well as Italy), a brightly lit day time discotheque, an operating theatre in a maternity hospital, a rugby match (and one on TV), a Brighton hotel and a ferry to Jersey. The Clifton suspension bridge makes a brief appearance along with several shots of Georgian terraces in Bath and Bristol airport. London features in a scene supposedly outside a divorce court where Vitti tells Stanley Baker she does not understand why he wants her to come to the zoo with his ex wife and her boyfriend and does not like the zoo. Vitti confirms her status as a hilarious comedienne as well as an art house goddess.
Review of The Girl with a Pistol
