Divorce Italian Style is a pretty fast moving comedy for 1960's standards, and is not even slightly outdated some 50 odd years after its release. It deals with universal themes like love, marriage, adultery and honor. In this case, it deals with honor like it was perceived, and maybe still is perceived, in the South of Italy, Sicily to be exact. In the masculine, macho society, (male) honor is everything, and Ferdinando Cefalu (played brilliantly by Marcello Mastroianni) knows this all to well. He uses it to his advantage when he is tired of his wife and falls in love with his wife. By slyly and secretly hooking her up with another man, he will be applauded by the community he lives in when he defends his honor and kills his wife. Eventually he hopes to run off with his new found love. (He does not worry about the jail time.) At least, that is his plan. The fun lies in the ways his wife annoys him, how he fantasizes about killing her, and his fantasies about how his trial will go down, and the way his plan plays out. Editing is sometimes energetic, fast in the right places, and very modern. The ending is hilarious and unexpected. Highly recommended movie.
Divorzio all'italiana (1961)
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