I would like to start this blog entry by saying I very much enjoyed
Caterina in the Big City and thought it was a very lovely coming-of-age story.
The film seems to move like a very tight gear. It moves very slowly at first and seems to be stuck but once the gears seem to come out unstuck the gears start moving at a rapid pace. What at first becomes a very interesting, yet slow character study where we are introduced to the character of Caterina, as well as her mother and father starts to quickly turn into a very plot driven film where Caterina's world continues to changed at a rapid pace from her father leaving her to he not choosing to pursue to go to technical school to her mother finding a new lover, everything in the film shows of a sort of adolescence that is actually not that uncommon amongst any films about teenagers yet alone Italian ones.
Caterina almost seems like a teenager who's life is taking place at an earlier decade instead of the new millenium. The people around her write and talk about political problems that seem to be almost a transparent view of American problems in the 1960's and 70's. Her liking to finding new things she's not comfortable with and going around graveyards listening to punk music and her father's leaving and her mother quickly finding a new male figure in the household seems almost like something that would have happened more than half a century ago in America. Although it is discussed that she lived in a hillybilly country did she not have a phone or some way to communicate with the Australian boy to whom she offers to be his girlfriend? So,
Caterina is obviously a coming of age film, but of which age is Caterina coming along in?
Hi Ben, I would like to hear more about your parallel between the political context of the film and American problems of the 60s and 70s. This is a rich topic. RD
ReplyDeleteI agree that at first the film was very slow paced, but once she got into school and we were introduced to the other two girls things really began to take off.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I believe that this is a "coming of age" story; I think it's more of a "finding who you are" story. Caterina goes though life with both of these completely opposite girls and discovers pros and cons with each. She does things because that is what the other girls in the group do, until finally, at the end, she drops them both and does what she wants.
I also agree with you on the pacing of the film. It took a while to establish the characters and their new location. But as soon as she started in her new school, everything was happening too fast. With Margherita she started skipping school and getting tattoos. With Daniela, she started wearing sexy clothes, and becoming more aware of her feminine side. Both of which, as we know, aren't the true sides to Caterina, which connects to your idea of saying its a coming-of-age tale. I believe this is true, as well as what Ashlee said about it being a finding yourself story.
ReplyDelete