YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

CINEMASCOPE independent Film journal

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From Ponticelli to Posillipo:

a Child’s Emotional War in Capuano’s La Guerra di Mario

by Tania Convertini

A child’s hand is drawing with a piece of chalk on a white wall. The black and
white frame shows drawings that, starting from the center, begin to fill the empty
spaces on the wall with increasing nervousness in a confused network of fine lines.
When the child’s voice is heard evoking personal memories of having been chosen for
adoption and engaging in fantasies of a cruel war, the color red appears on the
screen, coloring the lines and covering the child’s hand, acting as an intuitive symbol
of trauma. This opening sequence of La Guerra di Mario, preceding the opening titles,
effectively anticipates the main themes of Capuano’s film: adoption and emotional
war.
La Guerra di Mario clearly demonstrates that it is possible to narrate stories of
foster care and adoption on screen with an impartial and objective look at reality,
avoiding stereotypes and rhetoric. However, Capuano’s film is not just a narration of
the conflicts and difficulties of adjustment during foster care and adoption. Much more
emerges from his work: all the difficulty of being a child, the contradictory reality of a
city like Naples, and a world of adults and institutions that fail to understand and
support children. Capuano often explores Italian society using true stories, and the
story depicted in La Guerra di Mario is also inspired by a real life situation, narrated to

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

CINEMASCOPE independent Film journal

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the director by a friend and reinterpreted on screen. In many of the director’s works,
children and their relationship with the urban landscape of Naples play a major role.
In an interview with Fabrizio Colomartino, Capuano states, “Napoli has always been,
in the past more than now, a city of children. Children in Naples participate in the life
of the city, especially in the street life, giving life to the image of the ‘scugnizzo’
(street urchin).”1 We can recall films such as Vito and the others (1991) or Sacred
silence (1996) in which children, situated in the background of the city are the main
focus of the narrative. The stories of both films take inspiration from real life facts
reported in the news: the stories of bishop Peppino Diana, killed by the camorra and
Don Giuseppe Rassello, accused of abusing a 14-year-old boy and the story of Vito
who, according to Capuano, really exists, as documented by the crime section of the
newspapers. In all of his films, Capuano strives to offer a realistic representation of
life, in the best neo-realistic tradition. The director’s style has been linked, in fact, to
De Sica’s who Capuano calls affectionately “uncle.”2

La Guerra di Mario: the Story

Mario is an uneasy nine-year-old boy: the son of a prostitute who gives birth to
one child after another. He is a victim of abuse and maltreatment and has lived his
entire life in a complete state of abandonment in Ponticelli, one of the poorest
neighborhoods in Naples. Mario’s life takes a new direction when Giulia, a professor
of Art History at the University of Naples, decides to save him from the situation of
neglect and asks to be his foster parent and hopefully adopt him. However, Mario and
Giulia belong to two different worlds. Giulia lives, in fact, in Posillipo, one of the
richest neighborhoods of the city, and she belongs to a social reality very distant from
the one that Mario knows and in which he has been raised. Despite all the good
intentions and the love of Giulia, who often is overly permissive and unable to set
ground rules for Mario, the child does not seem to adjust to the new situation. Despite
the fact that Giulia tries to provide him with everything a child of his age could need,
from her loving care to the comfort of material items such as a room of his own, a
computer, games and even a piano (that Mario refuses to play because it requires

1
Interview released to fabrizio Colomartino for Camera.Minori.
http://www.camera.minori.it/pdf/pdf_interviste_capuano.pdf
2
Camera.Minori.http://www.camera.minori.it/pdf/pdf_interviste_capuano.pdf

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

CINEMASCOPE independent Film journal

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www.cinemascope.it
info@cinemascope.it

studying), the child is evidently uncomfortable with the new reality and develops
fantasies of war and cruel violence in order to cope with life. The psychologist who is
closely monitoring his process of adjustment voices her concern, and the judge ends
up rejecting Giulia’s request of adoption, leaving things open ended with no answers
or happy conclusions.

A Multiple Reading of the Film

The complexity of the characters that Capuano portrays in this film and the
presence of the city, not just as a landscape but as a social setting for Mario’s
emotional journey, bring to light at least three different levels of possible parallel
readings of the film, as suggested by Nicola Giuliani, the film’s producer.3 The most
clear and evident level concerns foster care and adoption, which Capuano portrays in
a realistic and objective way, offering us a true picture of a child struggling with his
internal and external worlds. As the title and the opening sequence of the film
anticipate, Mario, in fact, finds himself in a war against life, adults, and institutions.
The war, however, is not just his personal war; it is already around him and within
him, almost unavoidably. To confirm his willingness to remain as close as possible to
the reality of life, Capuano shows us an adoption that, despite the best intentions and
the undeniable desire of the adoptive mother to love, does not succeed. Reality, in
most cases, is not sugarcoated and reality is what the director is representing.
The second possible level of interpretation gravitates around the female
character Giulia and her maternal desire. Giulia refuses her biological ability to
procreate and looks for a different way of being a mother: to find a child to adopt and
to love who does not belong to her world. Her maternal desire is not linked to the
action of physically having a child, but to care for another human being.
Subsequently, when she becomes pregnant despite the use of contraceptives, she
does not accept her condition and she tells the doctor: “I already have a son.” She
accepts her pregnancy with resignation but she keeps silent about it, like it is not
happening. Her complexity and profound contradictions bring to the story and to her
relationship with Mario a deeper level of difficulty. Added to the complexity of Giulia’s

3
Nicola Giuliani, the producer of the film, expresses his idea of multiple levels of reading the film in the interview
which can be found in the extras that complete the DVD.

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

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character is the relationship with Sandro, her bourgeois significant other. He clearly
admits his inability to empathize with Mario: “ ‘that’ child makes me insecure,
inadequate, confused and angry. He destabilizes me. I do not understand him. I feel
he is against me.” All Mario represents is a threat for Sandro who, because of his
social and cultural background, cannot reach Mario, or even understand the place and
the reality from which the child comes.
This last consideration introduces us to a political and social level of
interpretation that we can observe in the two different and distinct social classes to
which Giulia and Mario belong. The contrast that Capuano proposes between the
degradation of Ponticelli, where children do not have rights, and the Naples of
Posillipo, with its elegant streets where professionals live in houses that are
monuments to good taste, art work, and design, is striking. The skillful photography
of Luca Bigazzi shows Posillipo mostly through the windows and from the balcony of
Giulia’s house with its breathtaking views – a stark contrast to the degraded streets of
Ponticelli observed through Giulia’s car window, or from the balcony of Mario’s
biological mother’s house. Nunzia does not see the beauty of the hills and the ocean;
rather, she observes a desolated landscape dominated by ugly buildings and parking
lots. The three levels of reading described above are inseparable and concur to
highlight the complexity of the dynamics among characters, social institutions and
urban landscapes. While these interconnected readings tie together different points of
view, and offer a syncretic vision of the film as a whole, they still preserve different
privileged angles of observation.

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

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Two Worlds in Contrast

View of Posillipo from Giulia’s balcony View of Ponticelli

The stories presented on screen, portrayed through dialogues, images of

characters and landscapes represent two clearly contrasting realities so distinct from
one another that they appear to be two completely different worlds. However, these
images do not carry any moral judgment; they are mostly a social commentary on
class struggle. What the director is clearly underlining, in fact, is the unbridgeable
distance between two realities and two social groups that cannot communicate with
one another.
One example of the contrast existing between these two worlds is demonstrated
by the two characters Nunzia, Mario’s biological mother, and Giulia. As much as Giulia
is well educated and culturally and intellectually aware, Nunzia is churlish and
ignorant. Her endless, pointless speeches are a perfect contrast to the art lectures
that Giulia delivers to her students at the university. Capuano effectively highlights
this contrast through the portrayal of several situations that show the two women
meeting alternately in each of their own social and family spaces. For instance,
pretending to be sick, Nunzia shows up at the Art Department where Giulia teaches
with the goal of convincing her that she needs help and a place to stay. Nunzia’s
physical appearance, her disturbing loud voice, her vulgar words and her limited
vocabulary, her inappropriate, tight clothing and costume jewelry are in harsh
contrast with the measured environment in which the scene is set and with Giulia,
who emanates natural graceful elegance. Likewise, when Giulia attends Nunzia’s party
for her newborn child, Giulia’s sober appearance is equally contrasted with Nunzia who
is wearing a long blond wig and a deeply cut top that exposes her cleavage and her

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

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stomach. Through the portrayal of physical differences between the two women,
Capuano conveys a more substantial distance that goes beyond their physical
appearance: there are two distant and separate worlds set as backgrounds for the two
women's lives. The experiences and opportunities that have shaped their lives are
dramatically different. Mario is now between these two worlds in a difficult, almost
impossible balance between the imprimaturs of his original world with its traumatic
experience of abuse deprivation and sufferance, and the new reality of a life full of
promise and possibility but still difficult to seize.
Another good example of the contrast between the two different worlds where
Mario is situated is demonstrated in the conversation that Giulia has with a parent at
Mario’s school. One of the parents is complaining about the “little delinquents”
(probably like Mario) penetrating the barrier of the “Napoli Bene”: “These little
delinquents are our children,” says Giulia. “They might be your children,” replies the
woman. Thus, “Our children” vs. “your children” makes evident the two separate
worlds as well as Giulia’s effort to fill a gap that cannot be filled because social classes
rule human relationships. Normally the bourgeois Naples of Posillipo becomes aware
of what happens in Ponticelli only through the “crime news” section of the newspaper.
Consequently, Mario’s presence threatens the status quo of the parents’ affluent
society emphasizing that there is no real contact between the two and suggesting that
none is desired

A Mother Son Relationship: Love and Conflict

The story that Capuano delivers to us is simple and intricate at the same time.
Both Giulia and Mario are looking for somebody to love and to be loved by, but the
world around them does not foster their desire. Giulia is full of contradictions and
intellectual superstructures, but she is also full of feelings and the desire to love. She
is extremely sensitive to art, which she teaches, and she has the gift of a particular
and unique view of life: she sees beauty and poetry where nobody else sees it. Giulia
is deeply attracted by how Mario is so different and so similar to her at the same time.
She is trying to be a good mother, but she is so aesthetically fascinated by Mario’s
deviant behaviors that she denies him all those “no’s” necessary for his complete
development. When Mario goes on a school trip and is sent back home because he

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

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was taking pictures of his classmates’ (boys and girls) genitals in the bathrooms, she
finds his idea absolutely brilliant and creative, and she can’t reproach him. Narrating
her amusement to Sandro, the adoptive father, she declares, “Listen to what he did:
he is brilliant. He did not take pictures of their faces, he took pictures of their little
penises and vaginas.” To her, Mario’s action is just a creative, divergent and exciting
way to look at reality while successfully eluding authority and convention.
Despite all the difficulties, Giulia and Mario’s relationship shows moving
moments of deep love. She seems, sometimes, to be able to reach his heart.
Similarly, one moment Mario rejects her and the next moment he is writing a poem to
her. Mario’s words are simple, but they deeply touch Giulia:

Mamma in the Summer/Mamma in the Winter, Mamma for the Spring/

Mamma on Monday/ Mamma on Tuesday/ Mamma today
Wednesday/mamma on Sunday morning/ mamma on Sunday night/
mamma during the day/mamma at night/mamma how much it is raining!4

It is easy to understand why Giulia is so touched by this poem. The repetition of

the word “mamma” reassures her of her role and her attempt to be a mother.
The first time Mario calls her “Mamma,” Giulia is deeply moved. She even starts
using lipstick as Mario suggests to satisfy his expectations of beauty. All children want
to see their mother as beautiful, and Mario is no different. As Giulia’s mother remarks,
the red lipstick emphasizes Giulia’s beauty. “You have always been beautiful,” her
mother says, “but beauty has to be highlighted.” The relationship between the red
lipstick and Giulia’s beauty is exemplarily expressed in the close up of Giulia in the act
of delivering an art lecture to students in the Naples’s subway.

4
I translated from the Italian original poem: “Mamma d’estate/ mamma d’inverno/mamma della primavera/mamma di
lunedì/mamma di martedì/mamma che oggi è mercoledì/mamma la domenica mattina/mamma la domenica di
sera/mamma di giorno/mamma di notte/mamma come piove”.

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

CINEMASCOPE independent Film journal

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While the background of the frame is a slide of colorful artwork made by street
artists, Giulia’s face is in the foreground, a pale face on which the red lipstick creates
a vivid contrast. Giulia’s personal beauty is framed within the beauty of art.
The red lipstick, however, is not simple make-up or lip color. It expresses
Giulia’s maternal behaviors. When a young immigrant girl selling flowers on the street
gets a ride from Giulia and Mario in their car, she is very attracted to the red lipstick
on Giulia and she wants it too. Giulia does not have the lipstick with her so, upon
request of the girl, who asks for ”bacio bocca,” she kisses her on the mouth to
transfer the lipstick and they all laugh together in a playful atmosphere. In this
physical act of overcoming social boundaries, Giulia shows her openness towards an
immigrant, a stranger, a veritable Other. The girl is another Mario; she belongs to a
different world and the lipstick is the trademark of acceptance, of Giulia’s ability, as a
mother and as a human being, to love beyond the rules dictated by society. More
than anything, the red lipstick on Giulia’s lips is an indicator of her new relationship
with Mario. She is open to transcend her comfort zone; she is available to explore for
him and with him, new areas of her self.

Mario and the New World – the Emotional War

Giulia’s love, however, is not sufficient to overcome the sense of isolation,
loneliness, and frustration that Mario experiences in his relationship with the new
world. Formerly raised in a state of social, physical and emotional isolation by his

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

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biological mother, Mario finds himself suddenly challenged by the new rules of a
golden reality to which he feels he does not belong. He even refers to Giulia by
saying, “She is not my mother, she is not mine: she does not belong to me.” She
does not belong to him as he does not belong to her world.
Mario’s transition from one world to the other is not an easy one. He is
transferred to a different school due to discipline problems that his adoptive mother
minimizes. His only social contact is with a dog (Mimmo), found in the street, and with
a friend who is transferred from a poor neighborhood (the only child with whom he
can communicate). Mimmo’s condition of being a stray dog, lost in the street, mirrors
Mario’s internal feelings. He can easily communicate with the dog because the two can
unconditionally love each other. There are no requests and no pressures; Mimmo just
trusts Mario. In fact, he trusts him to the point where one day he follows Mario
through a red light, gets hit by a car, and dies, leaving Mario facing loneliness and
guilt.
It is Mario’s frustration, the feeling of being an outsider with no possibility of
communication, that provokes in him the insurgence of war fantasies in order to cope
with the real world. He imagines soldiers engaged in cruel battles, and the scenes
which come to life in his mind portray and represent, even if at an imaginary level, all
the violence that Mario has experienced in his life. He is terrified by this violence, but,
at the same time, he is attracted to it. Mario’s personal war is, nonetheless, a war to
survive in a society where bureaucracy and the total inadequacy of the adult world
transform the child’s education into an obstacle course. The failures of institutions and
of all the adults around him—from his adoptive mother, to the psychologist who
closely observes the transition, to the teachers at school—induce Mario to fantasize
about war as a simple act, dominated by predictable rules where the enemy is easily
identifiable. Mario’s fantasies of war are, for him, a sad and terrible place to hide, but
better than the psychological war with the adults, psychologists, and judges who
surround him. As we have seen, in the opening sequence of the film the director
chooses to have the color red taking over the black and white during the war fantasy
narration. In all the other sequences portraying Mario’s war fantasies, however,
Capuano inverts the technique, fading out the color to portray a disturbing black and
white reality in contrast to the brightness of the colorful streets of Naples and to the

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory

 YEAR V Issue 13 JulyDecember 2009

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numerous art works surrounding Giulia during the movie. Through the use of black
and white, Capuano skillfully evokes an absence of life and a sense of disconnection,
and the close-ups of Mario’s face absorbed in his fantasies effectively capture the
child’s feelings of fear.

An Open Ending

One of the last extreme close-ups of Mario on screen shows the child wondering
what will happen in his life, with a sad, interrogative expression on his face. Clearly,
the ending that Capuano proposes is not a fairy tale ending. Giulia’s request for
adoption is denied by the judge who, after observing Mario’s troubled adjustment,
decides to put the child in foster care with a new, and hopefully more stable, family. It
is a suspended ending: we do not know what will happen to Mario or whether he will
eventually be able to overcome his fears. What Capuano shows, with this extremely
sensitive, direct, and realistic film, is the complexity of human relationships, while
exploring the different feelings and points of view of all parties involved. But the one
to whom the director really gives voice is the child. It is through his eyes that we see
the events, from life in school that Mario sees as “an ugly prison,”5 to a friendship with
a dog, to the love for Giulia and the many conflicts that arise from it, to the disturbing
fantasies of war. Mario, in Capuano’s film is at the mercy of events. His war fantasy,
in which he is always empowered and in command, killing and executing,
counterbalances the fact that in his life at nine-years-old and up for adoption, he has
no power to change the course of events.

5
Mario describes the school using an interesting metaphor that clearly expresses how confined he feels in the scholastic
structure: “The prison is a nice school and the school is an ugly prison.”

10

The Child in Film as Locus of Memory