Softly, Softly (film)

Plot

The movie opens in the enchanted garden of Bomarzo (Parco dei Mostri) “monsters’ park” It is the 1645 work of Pier Francesco Orsini, (1528–1588), a patron of the arts, created the gardens. The design has been attributed to Pirro Ligorio, a well known architect and antiquarian of the time.The park of Bomarzo was intended not to please, but to astonish, and like many Mannerist works of art, its symbolism is arcane; for example, one large sculpture is of one of Hannibal's war elephants, which mangles a Roman legionary, and another is a statue of Ceres lounging on the bare ground, with a vase of "fruits of the earth" perched on her head.The surreal nature of the Parco dei Mostri appealed to Jean Cocteau and the great surrealist Salvador Dalí, who discussed it at great length. The opera Bomarzo premièred in Washington in 1967. The enchanted park provides a backdrop for the release of rathional behavior in the film and sets the topne for the characters to explore their sexuality.While walking in a garden of statues of women, Ester and her friend Adele see two women kissing. Ester then dreams of kissing Adele and later imagines making love to her while she is in the arms of Oscar, her husband. She confesses her passion to Adele and also tells Oscar that she loves another. His jealousy takes over: he assumes it's a man, and he begs Adele to help him discover this rival's identity. Eventually Ester tells him she loves a woman. This makes him even less reasonable: he jumps between bewilderment ("Am I a cuckold?") and violent anger. After he gets drunk and figures out that Adele is the object of Ester’s unconsummated desire,as she decides to leave Oscar he chases her through Rome eventually disrupting the filming at Cine Citta’ of a faux Felinni film that results in a chase scene through the sculpture “staff shops” at Cine Citta’.

Cast