Living in a remote part of rural Italy, German transplant Wolfgang and his family have all but turned their backs on the rest of society to live on their desolate farm and survive on their ramshackle beekeeping enterprise. Gelsomina, almost a teen and the oldest of his four daughters, is expected to be fully proficient in helping him run the hives and also taking responsibility for her younger siblings whilst her mother and aunt tend to their small market garden. Their life is tough and hard as Wolfgang insists that on an existence which seems to shun any hint of modern agriculture machinery or methods.One day when the family are taking a dip in the ocean after doing their daily chores they stumble on a film crew making an advertisement for a Reality TV Show called ‘Most Traditional Family’. Both the set and the star are very cheesy but in the eyes of Gelsomina and her sisters who have never ever encountered anything remotely glamorous, it’s all beauty personified. The girls desperately want to be able to enter the competition which totally horrifies their father as it stands for everything he is against. However as the local authorities have just been to visit the farm and demand that he either brings it up to European Law standards or lose it, he is sorely tempted as the family are broke and could badly use the prize money. They have already taken in Martin a sullen German boy from a juvenile delinquent program but they got little money from that and anyway his presence disturbed Gelsomina who thought he would replace her as her father’s heir as he seems like the son that he always wanted.
When Gelsomina’s secret application to enter the competition gets accepted, an extremely reluctant Wolfgang agrees. Dressed up in ancient costumes and taking the boat to the isolated island where the filming is to be done in a cave complete with ancient Etruscan paintings gives an even more surreal feeling to this rather odd story. Here Wolfgang who never shows any emotions to his family becomes yet even more remote as he goes through the motions required of him to try and get the elusive prize money.
This second feature film from German/Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher (‘Corpe Celeste’) focuses much more on the atmosphere and image of the situation of the family than the rather slight plot. She works like a artist painting a blank canvass that she fills with a rough and unforgiving countryside littered with struggling peasants trying to eek out a living into which she places one of the worst ubiquitous symbols of contemporary society : the Reality TV Show. It is a vivid contrast pitching Wolfgang’s idealism with that of the greed and crassness that the TV company is inevitably promoting.
The star of the family …. and the movie ….is young Gelsomina who seems the only one set on keeping this family really together . She’s matched in part by her sibling Marinella who is four years younger and is so independently minded that she never hesitates about arguing with Gelsomina about what’s best for them all. Although we should mention too the performance of Monica Bellucci (shortly to be seen in ‘Spectre’ making out with James Bond) as the TV star that mesmerizes them all.‘The Wonders’ all looks like a world from a distant past that is pretty to look at for a very short while, but never to actually ever visit.
