Jay Rohr
Seven Beauties sets out to examine one of history’s darkest periods through absurdity. In so doing, it indicts a segment of the population for standing idly by, while simultaneously hoping to defang a deeply disturbing moment in time. That may make it easier to handle, especially in artistic discourse. Yet, some might see something understandably offensive in an absurdist take on the Holocaust, not to mention the film’s demand for unflinching moral superiority in the face of evil. That’s because the film’s indictments can unintentionally bite through a sensitive subjection, their sharpness tearing at old wounds easily reopened.
Survival is arguably the overarching point of the picture. Released in 1975, Seven Beauties tells the story of Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini), a dandy prancing his way through Naples as fascism infects Italy. He lives off the work of his seven sisters who toil away as mattress makers, while he wanders the city flirting with women. When one sister is lured into prostitution, he feels his honor besmirched so kills the pimp responsible. However, unable to orchestrate things for the appearance of self-defense, Pasqualino is charged with murder. To escape a harsh sentence, he pleads insanity. Expediting his egress from the asylum, he volunteers for the army. He’s caught by Germans after deserting his post and sent to a concentration camp.
Every action Pasqualino takes betrays selfish motivations. Even the revenge killing to redeem his family honor is more about maintaining his status as a low-level macho criminal. Pasqualino operates as a metaphor for a type of bourgeoise individual, who idly observed creeping fascism enveloping Italy. His acts of self-preservation do nothing in service of any greater good.
In the concentration camp, he attempts to seduce the commandant. Shirley Stoler (The Honeymoon Killers) plays the part with a marvelous coldness that emphasizes how contemptable she finds him. Regardless of his amorous declarations, she sees only a starving prisoner begging for food. Nothing for all the other starving souls, by the by, just a bowl for himself. Still, she allows Pasqualino to attempt to satisfy her sexually.
There’s a certain irony here during this profoundly unerotic encounter. Despite flying into a murderous rage when his impoverished sister chooses to become a prostitute, here is Pasqualino on his knees offering sex for some scraps of food. Suddenly being a sex worker isn’t so bad when it benefits him.
Despite repeated failures as a boy toy, Pasqualino is made a kapo, a prison functionary in charge of a barracks. For a short while, Seven Beauties examines an aspect of concentration camp existence more thoroughly explored in The Grey Zone (2001). Both films look at what it’s like for prisoners of death camps to be put in charge of other occupants. However, while the Sonderkommando depicted in The Grey Zone desperately hope their cold calculus for survival will eventually lead to a chance for escape, Pasqualino simply cares about staying alive. The one film is about people pained by the morally indefensible decisions they’ve chosen in hopes of an optimistic outcome, while the other is about a selfish man desperately trying to claim the high road as he becomes complicit in atrocities.
Seven Beauties eventually concludes with Pasqualino making it back to Naples. Having survived the worst of World War II, he returns to find all his loves ones are now prostitutes. However, now it means nothing to him, though he dully remarks those days are done. His aim is to move on, leave the past behind so it can fade from view.
That accusatory conclusion may be why Lina Wertmüller’s feature struck some audiences in a weird way. Contemporary viewers are remarkably used to talking about the Holocaust. It is, essentially, a subgenre of films at this point. For the more action-oriented, one can check out flicks like Defiance (2008), The Odessa File (1974), or Triumph of the Spirit (1989). Bent (1997) looked at being gay in Dachau. Then there’re the Oscar worthy pictures like The Pianist (2002), Schindler’s List (1993), and The Zone of Interest (2023). Even the cynical can mockingly enjoy the ham-fisted ridiculous Disney look at the rise of Nazis Germany in Swing Kids (1993), the story of German teens in the Hitler Youth by day who defiantly swing dance by night.
Granted, movies haven’t made it easier to discuss the topic. Simply to say, artistic interpretations of the events in and around the Holocaust have become more numerous than back in 1975. More importantly, except for one outlier — Life is Beautiful (1993) written, directed, and starring Roberto Benigni — there aren’t many such movies outright referred to as comedies.
For myriad reasons, following the atrocity, people all over the world wanted to leave the Holocaust in the rearview. These included survivors’ guilt, post-traumatic stress, and a resurgence of anti-Semitism in the wake of World War II, especially postwar Russia. Many just wanted to forget, and when it came to artists examining the situation the philosopher Theodor Ardono summed up several attitudes by stating, “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
One can appreciate such a perspective given the way Lina Wertmüller depicts certain situations. The absurd presentation of the concentration camps is a juxtaposition between a visually grim murky setting, slate grey full of a seemingly toxic haze, and the triumphant score of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” The music’s exultant tone is dramatically contrasted by the film’s bleak visuals. It feels like playing “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina & the Waves while a camera creeps through a graphic death factory full of baby bones.
Although there are those who’ll enjoy such a scene, it’s easy to appreciate the point of view of those displeased by it. According to lead performer, Giancarlo Giannini (Hannibal), even Lina Wertmüller felt uncertain about those aspects of the film. He said, “aaaa make people laugh over dead people.”
Meanwhile, Seven Beauties also suffers from a certain negative depiction of concentration camp survivalism. By focusing primarily on Pasqualino, there is an overarching implication that anyone who did what they had to survive did so from some core selfishness. At one point, the film depicts a mass machinegun execution observed by the protagonist and fellow deserter Francesco (Piero Di lorio). When the two sneak away, having done nothing to stop things, they briefly debate the matter. Francesco insists that the right thing to do would’ve been anything even though it would have absolutely resulted in their deaths. The movie outright proclaims the best action in such situations is to demand the perpetrators of atrocities stop, despite the ultimate result of both men killed and zero lives saved.
Seven Beauties revisits this notion repeatedly. There’s a constant implication that the only worthwhile moral choice doesn’t involve any utilitarian ethics which results in the most good accomplished. For instance, as kapo, Pasqualino is told to choose six prisons for execution or everyone in the barracks will be put to death. Other characters expressly state his actions make him complicit in the mass extermination and it’d be better if everyone dies. Granted, Pasqualino only really cares about saving his own life, but Seven Beauties essentially says that it’s better to die than assist a genocide even if doing so saves lives.
It’s the kind of moral stance that can only be taken by someone who isn’t staring down a gun claiming they’d gladly take a bullet to keep their principles pure. It also benefits from decades of postwar knowledge making it clear even the collaborators wouldn’t be spared. Only in historic hindsight does the notion of survival seem delusional — they were all already doomed.
Still, though it seems director Wertmüller wants audiences to frown upon those who did whatever it took to stay alive, that means ignoring the focus of Seven Beauties. Pasqualino isn’t a stand in for the average concentration camp victim. He’s a metaphor for a specific type of individual, those who saw this coming but did nothing about it.
Case in point, while smugly boarding a train to what he expects will be a vacation stay in the looney bin, Pasqualino encounters a political prisoner. Convicted of being a socialist, this individual has been sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison. Pasqualino jokes about socialism before mentioning he likes how Mussolini essentially ended the need for it, insinuating that’s why there are no longer unions, strikes, or labor riots. The political prisoner quietly informs the foolish fellow those things have only disappeared because the fascists made them illegal. The problems persist, and have even gotten worse, but pointing that out is now a crime.
Throughout Seven Beauties, director Lina Wertmüller composes a portrait of a vapid individual who’s deceitfulness and selfish cunning will allow him to survive the worst horrors of the second World War. It’s this individual who endures while everyone else with real values dies because of their morals. In essence, the vicious eradicate the decent who stand in opposition to atrocities while the conniving selfish folks creep away. Their survival allowing the world to spin towards the same outcome again years later.
Wertmüller referred to Pasqualino’s journey as an “odyssey of horror.” The unlikeable nature of the protagonist, though, makes it hard to care what happens to him. That’s because, as Roger Ebert observed, “Seven Beauties isn’t the account of a man’s fall from dignity because Pasqualino never had any.” Rather, it’s observing a grim reflection that may be unsettlingly close to the audience’s own.
Those who identify with Pasqualino’s choices, who may have acted similarly, are likely to feel slapped in the face by Seven Beauties. The Holocaust is often a chance for filmmakers to explore the most noble aspects of humanity. Narratively, the focus tends toward people making the right moral decision. Seven Beauties treats any choices which imperil the protagonist as outright absurd thanks to a cold survivalist arithmetic.
Life is Beautiful was able to squeeze comedy out of this historic atrocity by depicting its humor as the result of someone desperately trying to remain sunny in a dark situation. Audiences considered that admirable. Seven Beauties highlighted that the Holocaust is humanity at its most grimly ridiculous, a senseless slaughter conducted by the morally reprehensible, allowed to persist by selfish self-serving cowards. Several critics loved it, resulting in Wertmüller becoming the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director.
Others felt, “Much of it is fifth-rate slapstick, decked out in gaudy sub-Ken Russell style with the occasional interpolation of gruesome or violent images, plus some nudgingly insistent music.”
Pauline Kael wrote, “Wertmüller turns suffering into vaudeville not as part of a Brechtian technique but, rather as an expression of roller-coaster temperament” adding that the movie, “gets an audience response by confirming what people, in their most superstitious recesses, already believe: that human nature stinks and nothing can be done about it” before then insisting the film appeals to a guilt-ridden audience that doesn’t want to be martyrs.
Kael isn’t entirely wrong. Seven Beauties is hardly a subtle movie. Its inversions can be painfully obvious. For instance, Pasqualino lives off women at the opening of the film then his survival depends on begging the female commandant for food. There is a certain cruelty throughout that is hard to ignore, and several aesthetic choices feel obvious such as sickly green lighting to make the aforementioned commandant look vile.
Dealing with such a sensitive subject, Wertmüller didn’t want people to get the wrong message. What makes Seven Beauties hauntingly grotesque is how easy it is to understand Pasqualino’s position, that there is no reason to risk one’s own life when the outcome won’t result in change. In other words, there are those resigned to evil in the world even when it is ridiculous because they see no point in resistance. Yet, it is the very act of resisting that seeds opposition. Seven Beauties offers the double-edged observation that while the selfish may survive, it is the virtuous who suffer because standing up for others makes them targets.
