Looking For Alibrandi

Clip 2: ‘Nonna’s spy ring’

Taken from the feature Looking For Alibrandi (1999)

Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG

Curator’s clip description

Josie (Pia Miranda) laments the lack of privacy in her life. Every afternoon she must visit her grandmother, Nonna Katia (Elena Cotta), where everything she does is already known, courtesy of Nonna’s network of spies. At Nonna’s house, Josie and Katia fight on sight, and in two languages. Nonna brings up the curse and Josie goes too far. On her way out the door, Josie runs into Michael Andretti (Anthony LaPaglia), her father.

Curator’s notes

The early stages of the film have a very playful sense of humour that adds immensely to the audience’s enjoyment. Melina Marchetta has said that when she wrote the novel, she was unaware that she was writing a comedy: for her, it was more like reportage! Kate Woods, the director, generally avoids the clichés of the Italian family comedy, or treats them in a fresh way (as in the brooch that’s also a camera). The dialogue is often fast and in two languages, giving a reality to the family arguments. When Josie walks into Michael Andretti at the end of the scene, she recognises him as her father, although she has never met him.

Paul Byrnes, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows the clash between Josie (Pia Miranda) and her grandmother Nonna Katia (Elena Cotta) over values and culture. On her way to her grandmother’s house after school, Josie imagines the local street is full of elderly Italian women whom she calls ‘Nonna’s spy ring’. At Katia’s house the two have a heated exchange that ends with Katia ordering Josie to leave. At the front door Josie encounters Michael (Anthony LaPaglia) who, although she has not previously met him, is her father. The clip includes music and Josie’s voice-over narration.

Educational value points

The clip shows how exaggeration can be used in film for comic effect. A succession of black-clothed Italian women on the street are depicted through Josie’s eyes as being part of ‘Nonna’s spy ring’, armed with mobile phones to report her movements or hidden cameras to take surveillance photographs. Newspaper banners such as ‘BLACK WIDOW SPY RING CLOSES IN’ report the success of the surveillance, while Josie’s narration is full of overstatements.

The first half of the clip humorously draws attention to the self-absorption, common in adolescence, of someone who believes the world revolves around them. Josie’s subjective voice-over guides the audience through a scene in which she believes that her every action is observed and, by implication, judged.

Tensions that can exist between generations as a result of changes in fashions or modes of behaviour are highlighted in the clip. Josie’s hair, fashionable to her, is a mess in her grandmother’s eyes. Similarly, Josie’s blunt language (for example, ‘Nonna I’m not eating. Do you understand English!’), aggressive body language and general irritability are seen by her grandmother as showing lack of respect. Conversely, Josie sees Katia’s complaints as nagging.

The use of both Italian and English in the clip symbolises the different cultures that the two women inhabit. Although Katia and Josie understand both languages, they use the one with which they are most comfortable, only making use of the other for emphasis. For example, their last exchange ends when Katia says, in English, ‘Go home Josie, I do not want you here’. Ultimately, as Katia suggests, their relationship is one of misinterpretation.

Early scenes in films can indicate future plot developments, as this clip shows. The extreme and prolonged close-up of Katia’s stony face after Josie says she has ‘cursed’ her daughter Christina implies that Josie has touched a raw nerve, and later the film reveals Christina is the product of an extra-marital affair.

Film and acting techniques used to convey tension between characters are illustrated in this clip. When Josie arrives she barely acknowledges her grandmother, looks down or away to avoid her gaze and leaves her headphones on. The camera follows her as she continually moves from room to room, seemingly to evade Katia. They come face to face during the final heated confrontation, when the camera cuts between extreme close-ups of each of them.