>> Italian director Monica Stambrini lights up
the 15th annual Image&Nation Film Festival with
her audacious directorial debut Benzina

by MATTHEW HAYS

Upon its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, Benzina drew hordes of sophisticated queers who were dying to get a peek at this heavy-on-the-buzz European entry. They weren’t disappointed. Exquisitely shot, unusually paced and perfectly cast, the film is already drawing comparisons to such landmarks as Thelma & Louise, Heavenly Creatures and Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point.

Simply put, Benzina (which is Italian for gasoline) is every one of those films, but none of them. Based on the Elena Stancanelli novel, the feature riffs beautifully on various bits of pop and film history, but never feels like a cheap ripoff, or like a work that rests on its referential laurels. Instead, everything about Benzina feels like fresh, crazy, dream-like fun.

As the film begins, we meet our two lesbian lover heroines. They’re both about 20, full of sweet young innocence. But one is plagued by an overbearing, homophobic mother. During a row, mom is mistakenly killed. The two gals then lock up the gas station they run and head to the dump to rid themselves of the body.

Soon enough, our heroines are being stalked by homophobic assholes, hell bent on giving them a hard time. Meanwhile, mom’s heart may not be beating, but she’s still with them, naggingly offering irritating guilt trips from beyond the grave. Benzina is equal parts ghost story, tale of matricide, chase caper, action movie and, last but not least, lesbian romance. The script and direction are as smart as the film’s cast, with Maya Sansa and Regina Orioli exemplary as this same-sex Bonnie and Clyde, while Mariella Valentini is hilarious as the dead matriarch.

Retelling herstory
“At first, I didn’t think much of it as a story,” says director Monica Stambrini, from her home in Rome. “It wasn’t so much the plot that got me, but rather the women’s perspective in the book—their reflections on things. But then it struck me, that it might actually make a great action movie. What a chance, to take the personal drama and mix it with action. And then to have dead people talking. For Italian films, this would be quite different. And a nice challenge, too.”

Stambrini says the talking dead mother allowed for death in the film to be felt “more as metaphor. I wanted to suggest death. But there’s no real death in the film, except for one of the dogs. All of the other murders are a bit detached, a bit like fairy tales.”
Stambrini made a conscious decision to move away from realism, a move that may sound understandable after cutting her teeth working on various documentaries (including one on legendary Italian auteur Bernardo Bertolucci).

Softening fiction
As well, her vision of the film meant some sharper points of the book’s storyline were softened. The inadvertent killing of the mother figure on screen, for example, is an intentional homicide-by-hammer on the page. “I changed my mind about that a lot,” Stambrini says now. “Right up until the end, in fact. I didn’t want it to be her choice, I wanted it to be a mistake. In the end, I wanted people to be affectionate with the two girls. I didn’t want them to be tough, uncaring murderers. I felt they were more clumsy than aggressive. The deaths were supposed to be clumsy. Obviously, she hated the mother and she wanted her out of the way, but she didn’t really mean to kill her. I wanted them to be innocent. They are 20, after all.”

Innocent, yes, but these girls certainly seem to know how to manoeuvre their way to the bedroom. Benzina features some sensuous love scenes, bound to inspire as many women to sign up for lesbianism as, say, classics like The Hunger or When Night Is Falling. Despite the gorgeous qualities of the love scenes, Stambrini says there have been negative responses in Italy. “Yes, I’ve had a few. In Italy, two girls who make love, who make sex, it’s not so common or so accepted on screen. Some can be bothered by it. I had a few negative responses. But I felt it had to do with the homosexuality in general. It wasn’t really about the film, it was people who had a problem with homosexuality.

“Ironically, in the beginning the producer wanted more sex to be shown. He thought it would be great, you know, part of the trend in film where everything is shown, and that becomes a scandal in itself. But I thought the movie was more of an action movie, more for a 12-year-old audience, rather than a film to make a scandal about. I feel like they’re soft sex scenes, not hard ones.”

Bypassing clichés
What with the plot, the girl buddy thing and the semi-apocalyptic aura hanging over it all, the film recalls famous favourites. My mind is spinning with memories of Heavenly Creatures, Thelma & Louise, Butterfly Kiss and Sister My Sister. “When I first read the book I thought of those films. But when I was making the film, I was actually trying to avoid those. As soon as I read it I thought of those genres that are already there. I wanted to make it more of an action movie—the drama was an old thing, and I felt that to make a big psychological drama out of it, that’s virtually become a cliché in itself. Don’t get me wrong, Thelma & Louise is a wonderful movie, but I didn’t want to set out to repeat that.”

The director does confirm, however, that Zabriskie Point was a clear point of inspiration. “And the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple. I always remembered that the clumsiness was so wonderful. The characters got into homicides without being professional killers at all. As well, I loved the noir atmosphere of that film.” Stambrini also cites Jane Campion, David Lynch and Rose Troche’s indie dyke wonder Go Fish as major influences.

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Stambrini’s film is so full of good old-fashioned radical-dyke gusto, I figured she must be a full-fledged, card-carrying dyke. Nope. “No, I’m straight. But you know, I have credentials,” she says, through a thick Italian accent. “I have lots of gay friends and I’ve really always wanted to be a lesbian.” So, it seems a het has directed one of the big queer film fest hits of the year (though there’s nothing wrong with that).

Stambrini says the film itself is having a happy ending, even if its central characters face an ambiguous closure within the script. “I’m very satisfied with the reception the film’s had. We have a censorship board here in Italy which is quite tough, especially on lesbian films. We thought we’d get a rating restricting it to anyone under 13. Then I thought they might even make it restricted to anyone under 18. But in a response that really surprised me, they didn’t restrict it.

“So the film ended up being for everyone in Italy. That was great.” :

Benzina has its Montreal premiere as part of the 15th annual Image&Nation Film Festival