(The Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF) ran September 10-20 and HtN had boots on the ground covering all the best indie films they have to offer. Check out M.J. O’Toole’s Idda movie review from the fest! Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
In director Irene Dionisio’s Idda, two childhood best friends, now in their 30s, reunite to climb Mount Etna, an active volcano on Sicily’s east coast. But their friendship, even the dreams they shared, has changed in the years they have grown up. Like the volcano’s unpredictable nature, things may seem quiet on the surface until simmering tensions rise, like lava. Co-written by Dionisio and Marco Barromei, this gorgeously shot and haunting drama highlights how time changes us all and how our memories can shape how we feel about the people who come in and out of our lives. Set largely against the backdrop of the world’s most active stratovolcano, Dionisio uses the vast natural setting to unpack a friendship marked by joy, but slowly undone by long-buried resentment. With the spiritual and psychological overtones reminiscent of Bergman’s Persona, blended with a sensual, haunting atmosphere comparable to Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, Dionisio’s sophomore feature astonishes with enthralling performances from its female leads and its sharp direction.
Adele (Tecla Insolia) and Sofia (Romana Maggiora Vergano – recently seen in Italy’s Oscar submission The Spiral) rekindle their friendship after some years apart, deciding to finally make the climb to Mt. Etna, which they aspired to do for so long. Locals call the epic volcano “Idda,” which translates to “she” in Sicilian. Sofia, a children’s dance teacher and free spirit, left their hometown of Catania to live life in a bigger city. Adele, a photographer on assignment to cover the St. Agatha Festival, stayed home to tend to her father’s camera store after her mother’s passing a few years ago. While Sofia believes there was courage in her decision to move away, Adele retorts with a claim of her own: “There is also courage in staying.” This exchange establishes how different the two have become over the years.
Adele even gets ticked off by Sofia’s spontaneity and flirtatiousness, especially after the pair encounter documentary filmmaker Florian (Mati Galey) during the festival. No matter how much they have changed, each woman is carrying their own pain. Adele is still mourning the loss of her mother, which Sofia wasn’t present for. Sofia, on the other hand, even with her more extroverted nature, is more of a closed book. She keeps dodging calls from her boyfriend back home, and her reluctance to discuss whatever’s going on in her life only widens the rift. Dionisio makes her understanding of these characters clear enough that we can see how their differing outlooks fuel the resentment stirring from the very start of their climb.
Blending the surrounding natural environment to convey natural tension, Dionisio uses the volcano as a mirror for the bubbling resentment that’s been growing between Adele and Sofia and the internal climb the two must take to repair their fractured relationship. The film reaches its most ethereal heights in the mountain sequences. Adele seems to share a deeper connection with the volcano, evident in how she dreams about it and feels its sensations so intensely. As one person puts it, “When you look into the volcano, you see its soul.” Something strange starts happening to Sofia – she freezes mid-motion one minute, then collapses the next. The story picks up more when poor weather conditions complicate the climb, and the two women end up spending a night in a cabin belonging to Adele’s hometown friend Salvatore (Giuseppe De Dominico), a hunky mountain man. The forces of nature, remnants of the dead, and shifting dynamics disrupt the journey and bring the tensions to the surface. An unexpected sensual evening upends things for Adele and Sofia, their pent-up resentments and frustrations spilling over into a heated confrontation that reveals secrets and deeper layers of their complicated relationship. Just as they begin to shift direction, tragedy unexpectedly strikes, leaving one person haunted by the path she chooses to take next.
Drawing from the loss of her own friend, Irene Dionisio powerfully conveys a yearning for the past and the experience of revisiting memories of people who’ve since changed from who we once knew. Adele’s photography serves as a portal into this theme, born from her fascination with “things that disappear.” People and places come and go, but the memories and images we carry with us remain eternal. With stunning cinematography by Gergely Pohárnok and stunningly eerie sound design by Riccardo Alfano, Idda casts a spell of longing for the past and the people we once knew. The setting of Mt. Etna strongly emphasizes how quiet places in nature, with fewer distractions, can bring out people’s vulnerabilities and harsh truths. Tecla Insolia and Romana Maggiora Vergano deliver dual tours de force, their chemistry making their characters’ bond and complicated history all the more believable. There are many subtleties in this drama, but the power of memory is evident, even when your idea of a person changes in the present. The film takes time to find its momentum, but once it does, it sneaks up on you through a surreal blending of the vibrations of both the human heart and the ashy mountain’s.
– M.J. O’Toole (@mj_otoole93)
