Monica Bellucci says the role she plays in the new film Ketticè is territory she has never entered before.
"I've never done anything like that," Bellucci told Variety. "I was on set in my pajamas with a knife in my hand and slippers on my feet. This woman has abandoned her femininity."
The film, directed by Giovanni Tortorici, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. It is set in Palermo in 2012 and follows a teenage boy named Giulio who becomes increasingly lost, even after his encounter with a girl named Ketty. His mother, played by Bellucci, is also adrift.
Bellucci described her character as a wife and mother trapped in a kind of silent rage. "It was interesting to play this wife and mother who represents the angst and frustration behind the apparent perfection of decaying high society. She's an unhappy woman, bitter, with a kind of rage, but she has no outlet for it."
The character's frustration comes out in ways that are sometimes dark and sometimes almost absurd. "She tries to counterbalance this frustration by eating little cakes and screaming constantly. Sometimes, the situation becomes almost comical. There is a real generational incomprehension between the two of them," Bellucci said.
The character is threatening but ineffective. "She threatens her husband with a knife, but nobody's scared of her. She screams, she's aggressive, but everyone knows she won't go anywhere. She wouldn't have the courage to change her life. In the end, she's their slave," Bellucci said.
Tortorici spoke to Variety earlier in the week and described her performance as a "very intelligent, very realistic interpretation, even if the character is a bit eccentric. I have to say that when I showed the film to people who also know this aristocratic world, they told me that they found a lot of truth in her performance."
Bellucci returned the praise for the young director. "Giovanni is young, but he's completely in control of the set. He made a personal, unique movie," she said, also pointing to the work of co-stars Salvatore Gallina and Rachele Testagrossa. She added: "Giovanni looks so calm and sweet, but on set, he was a tiger – in a good way!"
Much of Bellucci's career has leaned toward darker material. "I expressed my dark side more: in 'Malèna,' 'Irréversible' or 'The Passion of the Christ.' Then, I did many genre films, from James Bond to 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' or 'Matrix,'" she said. Ketticè pulls her into something tragicomic, and she has been working with several young directors this year, including Maria Sole Tognazzi, Léa Mysius and Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.
"It's interesting because there's really an exchange, you know? They come with their own universe, point of view and excitement, and I come with my experience," she said.
