It's Easier for a Camel…

Viewers of modest financial means may balk at embracing a film that asks them to sympathize with a rich person's woes, but this semiautobiographical effort by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi--co-writer and director as well as the lead--has enough charm to win over most people. Tedeschi plays Federica, an extravagantly wealthy but emotionally fragile Italian woman living in France, who's wracked with guilt over her huge inheritance. She's also struggling to cope with a variety of family difficulties--a terminally ill father, a mother understandably on edge, a sister who's a near hysteric, and a totally disengaged brother. And she's going through a rough patch with her working-class boyfriend, which leads her to take up with a former lover. To make matters worse, her newly-written play is savaged by the director she hoped would stage it. So, it's no wonder that Federica pesters the local priest so persistently for advice that she drives the poor man to distraction. Even though It's Easier for a Camel… deals with heavy themes, it treats them with a light touch, and the film's deft mixture of narrative, flashbacks, hallucinations, and even brief moments of animation to portray the heroine's confused psyche recalls Fellini's 8½, but in miniature. Compared to that masterpiece, this would be at most 6¾, but that's more than enough to recommend it. [Note: DVD extras include eight minutes of deleted scenes and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a solid foreign film.] (F. Swietek)