‘Girl with a Suitcase’ or — The Power of Emotional Spaces?
Aida (Claudia Cardinale), a dazzlingly beautiful young woman, strikes up an intense friendship with 16yr old Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin) after Lorenzo’s older brother suddenly abandons Aida one day leaving her stranded and penniless. The friendship is somewhat transactional — he gets to longingly gaze at a gorgeous woman he can only dream of and she has someone to make sure she’s not left out on the streets (Lorenzo is, apparently, wealthy) — but it never feels uncomfortably exploitative. Sure, we could accuse Aida of leading him on but she always returns his adoring looks with the unspoken firmness that nothing physical is ever going to occur. Besides, her alternative is not pleasant.
So, what we have in ‘Girl with a Suitcase’ (1961) are all the ingredients for a tale of young love, adolescent infatuation and how a deep connection between two people doesn’t necessarily need to depend on sexual intimacy. And that’s initially what we get and it’s delightful, touching and unsentimentally sweet.
And then director/co-writer Valerio Zurlini makes a shift with Lorenzo dropping out of the movie almost entirely with the focus now firmly on Aida, the abusive power of men and her struggle to survive within such an oppressive environment.
Various sleazoids from her past and present attempt to worm their way into more than her affections and we start to realise that for all Lorenzo’s adolescent “charm” he’s still lusting after exactly the same thing every other guy is. This raises the question — is Lorenzo a real gentleman or is he a simply non-threat because his seduction techniques or so laughably childish? Male sexuality is innately immature and this is what can make it so dangerous.
It’s a fascinatingly clear-eyed look at how misogyny “functions” in society (there’s a brief but coldly terrifying performance by Gian Maira Volonté at one crucial point). Combine that with a genuinely compelling story and the result is a film that grips from the start.
What also grips, and to an astonishing extent, is Zurlini’s direction and Tino Santoni’s phenomenal cinematography. The way they capture the alienating empty spaces of middle-class Parma and the Romagna Riviera are as aesthetically striking and psychologically impactful as anything by Antonioni, yet whereas Antonioni utilised these voids and expanses to suggest isolation Zurlini, instead, uses them to emphasis our deepest yearnings for emotional connection. The effect is intensely moving without lapsing into sugary schmaltz.
A remarkable example of this is when Aida exits Lorenzo’s black bathroom at the top of a vast flight of stairs. She’s on the landing and he’s at the bottom and, whilst looking up at her with unrestrained rapture, he plays Verdi’s aria ‘Celeste Aida’ on a gramophone to both accompany and glorify her decent. It’s heart-catching stuff.
Meanwhile, the framing, compositions and blocking are mandible-loosening marvels leaving us slack-jawed on a constant basis. This is, in short, a seriously impressive movie.
‘Girl with a Suitcase’ is one of the finest black and white Italian films of the early 1960’s, and if that sounds like high praise that’s only because it’s deserving of every single word of it.
