The Sunday Woman

Luigi Comencini (8 June 1916, Salò – 6 April 2007) was an Italian film director. Together with Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Mario Monicelli, he was considered among the masters of the commedia all’italiana genre.His daughters Cristina and Francesca are both film directors.

Patron, together with Alberto Lattuada and Mario Ferrari, of Cineteca Italiana, the first Italian film library, in the post-war period Luigi Comencini became a film critic, initially for “L’Avanti!”, and later for the weekly “Tempo”. In ‘46 he made his directing debut with the documentary “Children in cities (Bambini in città)”; two years later he made his first feature length film, “Guagliò (Probito rubare)”. Commercial fortune, nonetheless, was only to smile on him with the diptych “Bread, love and dreams (Pane, amore e fantasia)” (1953) and with “Frisky (Pane, amore e gelosia” (1954), a prime example of that pink neorealism destined to prove so popular in Italian cinema. The Sixties saw him play a leading role in the genesis of the commedia all’italiana: “Everybody go home (Tutti a casa)” (1960), a scathing look at the behaviour of the Italians immediately after the armistice of 8th September 1943, is his most important work of the period, although others deserve a mention, including “Jail break (A cavallo della tigre)” (1961), a film with a strong narrative framework set in prison, and “The police commissioner (Il commissario)” (1962), a black comedy with romantic overtones that was quite ahead of its time. Later, Comencini was happiest portraying the world of children – something he had already tried his hand at in earlier works: it was his focus, for example, in “Misunderstood (Incompreso)” (1966), a beautiful condensation of the Florence Montgomery novel of the same name; in the TV adaptations “The adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio)” (1972) and “Heart (Cuore)” (1984), so fondly remembered by generations of viewers; in the wonderful “Eugenio (Voltati, Eugenio)” (1980), which probes the relationship between different generations with irony kept in check by austerity. He also contributed to light comedy with his unique, biting parable “The scientific cardplayer (Lo scopone scientifico)” (1972), the satiric whodunnit “The Sunday woman (La donna della domenica)” (1975), the bitter and atypical “The cat (Il gatto)” (1977), the totally bleak “Traffic jam (L’ingorgo)” (1979) and the allegory-cum-fairy story “Looking for Jesus (Cercasi Gesù)” (1982). Some less conclusive films followed, after which, health problems forced him to work only sporadically. His films constitute the legacy of one of Italy’s most personal directors, whose enormous merits have perhaps been underestimated. —italica.rai.it