Briljanti / Бриллианты

 

 

A Christmas film with all the trimmings, it’s a genuine crowd-pleaser, deploying a cast of successful actresses (18, in all) and set in its entirety in one of the most sparkly and colourful places imaginable: a prestigious dressmaker’s shop for the film and theatre world in 1970s Rome.

 

So it is, therefore, that between a plate of pasta, a read-through, and a little playful bante, we’re catapulted back to 1974, inside the walls of a splendid dressmaker’s directed by two diametrically opposed sisters, one of them determined and slightly despotic, the other more fragile and tormented.
An important order comes in for a huge film set in the eighteenth century: the costume designer (Vanessa Scalera) is an Oscar winner and the director (Stefano Accorsi) is incredibly demanding. The dressmakers get to work; they don’t have much time, but plenty to contend with, including a rivalry between two prima donnas who should be prevented from crossing paths when trying on their costumes, at all costs. And each of them has their own problems at home too, whether a violent husband, a tricky son or eternally insufficient funds… But these women are like diamonds: they’re not easily broken.

 

There’s a little bit of everything in the film: humour and drama, sisterhood and competition, grave losses, loves that might have been, secret relationships, and singing and dancing to tunes by Patty Pravo and the unmistakeable Mina… In short, the full breadth of Ozpetek’s universe in its most sensational form, dedicated to three diamonds of Italian film: Mariangela Melato, Virna Lisi and Monica Vitti.