Her long blond hair extensions streaming from under a cowboy hat, Vera Gemma is a riveting, larger-than-life subject in Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s Vera. Having grown up in the shadow of her famous father Giuliano Gemma, she has reached an aimless, lonely adulthood drifting through casting calls (she’s never chosen) and branded parties, until one day an accident brings her into the life of a family of slum-dwellers on the outskirts of Rome. As the filmmakers build a portrait of Vera’s empathy and generosity, they gradually introduce fictional elements that become indistinguishable from documentary reality, giving the film structure and narrative flash. It was a standout in the Venice Horizons section and should easily ride out of the festival world into specialized venues.
We meet Vera at her most glamorous and superficial, an eccentrically dressed figure in sexy designer wear and her omnipresent cowboy hat, which appears in various colors to match her outfits, and whose Oedipal connection to Daddy is implicit and a little dismaying. As she poses for photographers at an event on Via Veneto with two fingers framing her eye in a V-sign, we pigeonhole her as a narcissist fashionista of dubious taste. But when a young taxi driver takes her home and drops her in front of a fancy entrance, her loneliness is so evident, it’s painful to watch.
Vera is very conscious of what she calls her “funny face” and casually admits the “trans look” is what she likes to aim at. Her problems seem to have begun in childhood. At home, being beautiful was a family obsession (a portrait of handsome Dad hangs over her bed) and she and her sister were even given nose jobs as kids (which they reversed when they grew up.)
But being the children of famous people was the greatest burden. Vera’s friend Asia Argento appears in a delightful scene of joyful camaraderie. They visit the English cemetery in Rome where Asia sadly points out a tombstone reading only, “Son of Goethe”. The scene brings to mind Misunderstood, the film Asia directed about the hell of growing up with famous parents.
Vera has a film director boyfriend who talks exclusively about himself and his projects. When she won’t hand over a check for €15,000 because he went over-budget, he angrily dumps her. The incident illustrates the way people try to exploit her, not knowing what a spendthrift she is and that most of her money is gone. Exploitation is the first thing that springs to mind when Vera’s driver Walter takes her to the edge of town and, on a dangerous street, knocks over a man on a motorcycle, injuring his 8-year-old son. Ignoring the idea it could all be a scam aimed at fleecing her, Vera takes the two to the E.R. From that starting point, she develops a touching relationship with the boy, his father and grandmother, whose scrappy world of borderline poverty seems so much warmer and more authentic than her own. But this is not a Ken Loach film.
While it’s impossible to separate the real people from the acting, Covi and Frimmel’s direction of the characters is flawless in bringing out their inner essence, which is often hidden at the beginning. Frimmel’s camerawork is intimate without being intrusive, taking the viewer to Vera’s bed but not under the red satin sheets, or into a merry birthday party for Granny that Vera, dressed in a fur vest and high-heeled boots, decorated herself.
Directors, producers: Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel
Screenplay, editing, sound: Tizza Covi
Cast: Vera Gemma, Daniel De Palma, Sebastian Dascalu, Annamaria Ciancamerla, Walter Saabel, Asia Argento
Cinematography: Rainer Frimmel
Production companies: Vento Film (Austria)
World Sales: Be For Films
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Orizzonti)
In Italian
115 minutes
