Film Description
| LA SCONOSCIUTA (THE UNKNOWN WOMAN) | ||
| Director: | Giuseppe Tornatore |  |
| Country: | Italy/France | |
| Year: | 2006 | |
| Language: | Italian with English subtitles | |
| Runtime: | 118 minutes | |
| Rating: | 18A | |
| Principal Cast: | Kseniya Rappoport, Michele Placido, Claudia Gerin, Margherita Buy, Pierfrancesco Favino, Piera Degli Esposti | |
| Trailer: | View the trailer for this film | |
| SCREENING TIMES | |||
| Saturday, November 8 | 6:45 PM | Palace Cinemas | |
Winner:
Audience Award 2007 European Film Awards
Audience Award 2007 Moscow International Film Festival
With his multiple award-winning feature "The Unknown Woman," writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore ("Cinema Paradiso") has combined two familiar themes -- the horrendous fate that has beset many women from the former Soviet bloc in their flight to the West, and the nanny who seems disturbingly obsessed with her young charge. Sweet, however, are the uses of melodrama in the skilled hands of Tornatore, for he transcends the lurid and the coincidental with range, depth and insight, and a bold, confident, suspenseful style, to create a fable of love and redemption.
Russian actress Xenia Rappoport, a Pre-Raphaelite-like beauty, endures horrors as Irena, a haunted-looking young woman who goes to extremes to land a job as a nanny with an upscale, none-too-happily-married couple (Claudia Gerini, Pierfrancesco Favino) with an adorable but fragile little daughter (Clara Dossena). Everyday incidents trigger in Irena alternately sweet and horrific memories, and these become like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that is completed only when the film concludes, at last revealing its full meaning.
K.T.
Los Angeles Times
