Both films are made in the distinct Kerekes style but the light hearted Wishing On A Star couldn’t be more different than the tough docudrama 107 Mothers that was short in a Ukrainian women’s prison where mothers are permitted to serve their sentences with their children until their third birthday.
The film is about Luciana, a Neapolitan astrologer, who makes her clients’ wishes come true by sending them on a trip on their birthday to a precise destination determined by the stars to be reborn on their birthday. During these trips which Kerekes films they go to Taipei, Beirut or even a nearby village but often they find true love or discover what they truly desire in life.
Kerekes in his director’s statement said: “I am not Italian, I don’t understand the language, and I have a melancholic Hungarian character combined with an ironic sense of humour. Despite these challenges, I decided to create a film with multiple layers of storytelling. The first layer revolves around Luciana, an astrologist from Naples, who listens to the wishes of her clients. The second layer delves into their everyday lives, sometimes in complete contradiction to what they revealed to Luciana. The third layer is based on the magical situations that occur during a birthday trip. And finally, the fourth layer, which holds everything together, focuses on Luciana’s own struggles, doubts, and desires.”
Speaking to FNE he said: “I am not a fan of astrology and when the idea for this film was first suggested to me I was not interested to do a film about it. But when I finally met Luciana I was convinced immediately that this would make a good film. I don’t speak Italian so I found that working in another language meant I observed Luciana and the other people I was filming much more closely than I would have if I had just been listening to their words.”
Luciana meets her clients in her office and she takes her work very seriously and it’s obvious in the film that she genuinely wants to help the people who consult her. It’s this warm interest that makes the film a warm and enjoyable experience. There’s lots of humour too, like the woman who cannot afford to go to an Artic destination that Luciana recommends so she is given the alternative of creating Artic conditions in her flat at home. There’s also the funeral director who is looking for true love and when he advertises for someone to fill in at his business while he goes away to be reborn he falls in love with the woman he is training to replace him on his trip.
Most of her clients are looking for riches or to find true love and Luciana genuinely tries to help them. If this was a film about exploitation it wouldn’t be interesting but Kerekes captures the humour and warmth of this woman and the funny and sometimes sad characters who consult her.
Once again Kerekes proves that his shrewd observations of human nature are both entertaining and heartwarming.
Wishing On A Star ( Italy / Croatia / Austria / Slovakia / Czech Republic )
Directed by Peter Kerekes
Documentary
Cast as themselves: Luciana de Leoni D’Asparedo, Valentina Angeli, Alessandra Fornasier, Barbara Lutman, Giovanni Rugo, Adriana Vangone, Giuliana Vangone
