52 Films by Women Vol 7. 43. AMANDA (Director: Carolina Cavalli)
Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli redefines the female mental health film in her appealing, though not to all tastes, feature debut, Amanda . Featuring an intense central performance by Benedetta Porcaroli in the title role, it is a comedy about the need to connect, specifically a young woman who yearns to be noticed quivering in the face of attention. The film begins with young Amanda clutching a box of cereal whilst lying on a sun lounger in the middle of her family’s pool. On the side of the pool, her older sister, Marina is sunbathing. Sensing that she is almost invisible, or perhaps testing the response to her narcissism, Amanda tips her sun lounger over. Just as she does this, the family’s Latin American maid, appears with a tray bearing lemonade and glasses, which she promptly drops. Now an adult, Amanda reflects on an encounter in a cinema in which she and a male cinemagoer lock eyes. She waits for him. He looks at her. Nothing happens. ‘That was five years ago,’...