The absurdities of life on the farm

Maria Lungu in a scene from "The Wonders." Image courtesy Oscilloscope Laboratories.

“The Wonders” is a funky little film that's difficult to pin down. Is it a coming-of-age story about a young girl finding her independence? Is it a portrait of a family on the brink? Is it a peek into the daily lives of farmers with a surreal bent? Is it a cautionary tale about relying too much on dreams while avoiding reality?

Yes. It is all of those things, blended together and wrapped in a strange little package by writer/director Alice Rohrwacher, then delivered to the doorstep by a fellow with impish intent. There is a danger that comes with opening the box though; underneath the film's peculiar surface is a story that will surprisingly and subtly break your heart.

Told in a quasi-episodic fashion, “The Wonders” centers on an Italian farm family earning most of its income via beekeeping. The theoretical heads of the ramshackle house are oft-angered father Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck) and mother Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher), but the soul of the family is the teenage Gelsomina (Maria Lungu), who quietly keeps the peace and the farm operational while serving as her father's most trusted assistant. Her status is rooted in part by being the eldest daughter (the other three played by Agnese Graziana, Eva Lea Pace Morrow, and Maris Stella Morrow), although she is hard working, reliable and smart enough to know this is not a life she wants for herself.

Family life enters a stage of upheaval thanks to a few events; the incorporation of Alba Rohrwacher's sister Cocò (Sabine Timoteo) into the home; a meeting with an actress (Monica Bellucci) promoting a reality competition called “Countryside Wonders” about farmers and hunters, an order to upgrade the family's honey lab, and the addition of quiet German teen criminal Martin (Luis Huilca) as a temporary helper. The last change has the most direct effect of Lungu; the Teutonic worker essentially replaces her in Louwyck's eyes because of his desire to have a son of his own. Still, Lungu is devoted to her family, and she surreptitiously enters the TV contest despite protests from her father, even after they are named a finalist and have a chance to win the grand prize of a “big bag of money.”

No specific Euro figure is ever mentioned verbally; the quote is for a literal “big bag of money” showcased in a commercial featuring Bellucci's actress. It's kind of a weird bit, and one of several little quirks that pop up throughout “The Wonders,” including a running joke about Louwyck cursing out hunters after sleeping alone outdoors overnight and Huilca's Martin communication method consisting of whistling. There's a chance the apicultural lifestyle is just that weird, although the better bet is Alice Rohrwacher added these little touches in to highlight the quotidian absurdities of life, essentially the little bits of weirdness in life that are noticed and shrugged off quickly. The idea isn't to make the central family weird; rather, the family has normalized the oddities that surround its life of self-imposed isolation. Or perhaps the peculiar lifestyle and the events that come from it are tied to Louwyck's Wolfgang, an often monstrous man who spends more time yelling at his children for perceived failures than praising them. He's particularly cruel to Lungu's Gelsomina, a child he has both an infinite amount of love for her and a deep loathing toward Lungu as well; she's the apple of her father's eye, but her willingness to search for a new life counters his seeming satisfaction with the status quo.

Lungu is a dreamer, and dreams are a cruel, cruel entity to possess in “The Wonders.” The film has a habit of providing glimmers of possibilities, chances for the family to get out of its station and provide a better place to live than the decrepit farmhouse in the middle of hunting country. Alas, hopefulness is trumped by reality again and again and again; there isn't a magical solution to solve any of the woes afflicting Lungu's family, a fact she learns and shrugs off like the absurdity around her.

What happens at the conclusion of “The Wonders” is the reveal to the audience that everything isn't going to be OK. It's presented quietly but with force by Alice Rohrwacher – the shots she uses highlighting the themes of loneliness and despair – and the effect hits like a sledgehammer. She's like a magician, using her smaller tricks to set up that one last reveal to leave the audience dumbstruck and reeling.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: Unrated

Run time: 110 minutes

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: People partial to Italian cinema.

Take the whole family?: Really doesn't fit as a good family film because of its oddness, but the content won't bother anyone younger than 11.

Theater or Netflix?: Worth waiting for at home because of how few theaters will carry it.

How humorous is “The Wonders”?: For a film that rips you apart at the end, it is kind of strangely funny. One of the early scenes, for example, involves a pretty complex conversation as one character uses the toilet; it's not a riotous moment, but the utter strangeness of the moment and the facial expressions make it more amusing than it might be otherwise.

Watch this as well?: Finding a film about apiculture is kind of tricky, but Italian cinema is filled with bizarre films. Federico Fellini's “8 1/2” is oddly mesmerizing and utterly brilliant, while the strange horror flick “Phenomena” – starring a really young Jennifer Connelly – has its charms.