L'Amour ne pardonne pas (2015)
Directed by Stefano Consiglio

Film Review

Ariane Ascaride takes a break from her run of Marseille-situated dramas directed by her husband Robert Guédiguian and heads off to southern Italy for this racially themed melodrama directed by up and coming Italian filmmaker Stefano Consiglio.  After his documentary L'Amore e basta, which revolved around homosexual relationships, Consiglio turns his attention to a theme that is very current in Italy at the moment, namely racial intolerance. L'Amour ne pardonne pas has some striking similarities with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and Paul Vecchiali's Corps à coeur (1979), although these earlier films deal somewhat more convincingly with the subject, and in a far more humane and involving manner.

Despite strong performances from Ascaride and co-star Helmi Dridi, a Tunisian actor with great charm and presence, L'Amour ne pardonne pas has difficulty engaging the spectator's interest and singularly fails to engage the emotions.  Consiglio is so preoccupied with the part of the film dealing with racism that he neglects the central romance, which becomes not much more than a catalyst for the hysterical psychodrama that preoccupies most of the second half of the film.  In Fassbinder's film, the romance is firmly established before the racial themes come to the fore, and this is what makes his film so powerful and moving.  By contrast, Consiglio's film comes across as mainly an anti-racist rant, its human dimension reduced to a clichéd reworking of the 'love conquers all' scenario.  Some beautiful moments, most supplied by the lead actors, do not prevent this from being a hugely disappointing film.

Film Synopsis

Adrianne is a Frenchwoman in her late fifties who lives a peaceful life in a small town in the south of Italy.  It has been some years since her husband died and she divides her time between her job as a nurse, her grown-up daughter and her granddaughter.  One day, her work brings her into contact with Mohammed, a Moroccan man in his twenties.  Despite their different backgrounds and the immense age gap, Adrianne and Mohammed soon realise they are in love and begin a relationship.  In this part of Italy, racism is rife and the couple's blossoming love affair soon comes under threat...