Maura Delpero’s glorious, understated, elegant Vermiglio shows no combat, no destruction and no war deaths. Two young men live in a barn; they are or were soldiers, but no longer, and it’s hard to tell why they’re not with the army – were they discharged or more likely did they desert? But no one seems upset about them. The only clear reference to the war comes late in the film when a young woman says the war turned all the young men into idiots. And over and over it’s the women who know how to deal with crises.
Mostly, Vermiglio, which is the name of the village, is about the Graziadei family – A stern, cold, white-haired father who’s the schoolteacher, his always-pregnant wife and the eight surviving children, of 10. The oldest is maybe 20. While Italy is poor at the end of World War II, the Graziadeis have enough food, a cow, a house and money to send number three daughter Flavia away to boarding school. That means that Ada, the also deserving number two daughter, will not get the education she craves, or see the world she hungers for.
Vermiglio is unconcerned with the outside world. The film shows daily life, nestled in gorgeous mountains, and it looks at this place and these people with affection and acceptance. Compared to a lot of our contemporary movies, Vermiglio is old-fashioned. It honors without question these unspectacular human beings and their place on the Earth.
Images of Ada washing clothes at a well or milking the cow, or two young lovers’ first moonlight kiss give beauty to these lives. When the two men in the barn cook their dinner over an open fire outside, it feels sacred, and a nighttime procession with torches in honor of Santa Lucia is simply gorgeous.
The picture doesn’t idealize these characters; it observes without judgment. You can see for yourself the harsh self-serving father, his exhausted wife, the inadequacies of virtually everyone. Lucia, the oldest sister, falls in love with Pietro, one of the men in the barn. She gets pregnant; they marry, and Pietro, a Sicilian, goes south, supposedly to see his mother. It turns out badly and Lucia’s life may be ruined.
Yet Vermiglio is also visually magnificent. Scenes in the blue light of winter make you shiver, but they’re thrilling with the heavy snow on the ground and the Alpine peaks in the background. With spring, the bright yellow light shines full of promise. The camera rarely moves, so motion on screen comes from the characters, giving them power over their own lives. A still shot of a small cloth-covered table with a mirror, a vase with dried flowers and a small wooden box embodies the deep beauty of this world and its people.
There’s plenty of struggle for the characters, but the Graziadeis find ways to cope and occasionally to celebrate. Characters confront the troubles that come either from the natural world or from their own mistakes, and life goes on, but always on the tightrope between difficulty and beauty.
Vermiglio joins the long tradition of Italian neo-realism, which emerged around the same time its story takes place. This film from 2024 takes its cinematic cues from that time, and the picture maintains the long neo-realist belief that human life demands respect.
