Back to the future: The Comencini sisters and their search for a cinematic language

Abstract

As part of a larger project on contemporary Italian women directors, this article will focus on Cristina Comencini's Il più bel giorno della mia vita/The best day of my life (2002) and Francesca Comencini's Mi piace lavorare, mobbing/I like to work, mobbing (2003). We argue that these films and their modes of production challenge and reassess a traditional style of filmmaking as well as the representation of women and children in cinema. They explore the changing private and public dimensions of women's lives in contemporary Italy and the impact that this has on family relationships, in particular on the mother-daughter relationship. By approaching these films through the lens of Italian feminist philosophers and feminist film critics we will consider the representation of the mother-daughter relationship in the films as well as the cinematic implications, for both protagonists and spectators, of what it means to search for a new (cinematic) language constructed through the eyes of children and daughters.