 |
| Monica Dugo with Anne-Katrin Titze celebrating Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 22nd edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. Photo: Sally Fischer |
Monica Dugo’s Like Turtles (Come Le Tartarughe), co-written with Massimiliano Nardulli, starring the director with Romana Maggiora Vergano, Angelo Libri, Edoardo Boschetti, Martina Brusco, Francesco Gheghi, Annalisa Insardà, and Ancheta Aurelia Martin was a highlight of Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 22nd edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. Monica Dugo, who plays the mother, Lisa, graciously sprinkles the clues about this family of four and trusts that we connect the dots.
A closet is being built in an apartment. We see the city from above, Rome in all its splendour. It’s a house with lavender satchels, the teenage daughter Sveva (Romana Maggiora Vergano) plays tennis. The father Daniele (Angelo Libri) brings back a gift basket from a conference. The family expects it. It is a ritual. But this year, he left the chocolate for the nurses. One of his assistants is a vegetarian, the other isn’t. Grandma (Sandra Collodel) likes to call during dinner. Only the son, seven-year-old Paolo (Edoardo Boschetti), stays at first to have some dessert with mom.
 |
| Sveva (Romana Maggiora Vergano) confronts her father Daniele (Angelo Libri) |
The whole family shares the spacious closet until Daniele leaves without warning, without discussion, emptying his side of the wardrobe. “Ghosting is what men do best,” we hear and the daughter’s girlfriend Sonia (Martina Brusco) confides that when her father left the family her mother got a face lift. Not so Lisa, who chooses to move into the vacant closet and stay there instead. Tina (Ancheta Aurelia Martin), their maid from the Philippines, and the daughter’s boyfriend Luca (Francesco Gheghi) start to get used to it and a new therapist (Annalisa Insardà) comments that she has dealt with Hikikomori cases before. The complete social withdrawal is taken in stride. Daniele supposedly lives in a motel nearby and the kids saw “Dad kissing a colleague who is old and gross.” But this is not his story anymore. We are with Lisa, awaiting where her turtle-dom will lead.
From inside the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center the morning after the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema Opening Night screening of Francesca Archibugi’s The Hummingbird (Il colibrì), Monica Dugo sat with me for a conversation on Like Turtles.
Anne-Katrin Titze: I think one of my favourite exchanges in your movie is the father saying: ”I have problems with Mama.” Then the daughter asks “Does she know?” Tell me how you created this family!
 |
| Lisa (Monica Dugo) with her children Sveva (Romana Maggiora Vergano) and Paolo (Edoardo Boschetti) |
Monica Dugo: I started with a lot of friends. Also I split up with my husband some years ago.
AKT: So there are some autobiographical elements?
MD: Some, yes. But not totally. I never thought very much about this problem. I have friends with divorces but I was never interested in their story. So I started to want to understand more. One of the things when men leave from the family, sometimes they don’t say the truth.
AKT: They just disappear?
MD: Just disappear or don’t say anything. Women are often more honest. They need to say; “Oh my god, something happened to me, I have another man I met! I hate you!” Men, no! Never in the experience of all the people I interviewed. No man said “I met another woman and I love her.” Another thing - men sometimes, very often they think that women are so clever that they understand that. No need to explain.
AKT: As though the wife already figured it out? That’s the line by the daughter “Does she know?”
MD: Yes.
 |
| Monica Dugo inside the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AKT: And she doesn’t.
MD: She doesn’t. Maybe she’s a little bit jealous but she really doesn’t know.
AKT: Then she decides to sit in the closet and be like a turtle, hibernating. Where did that idea come from? That is not your friends’ experience!
MD: No, I found an empty closet one day in my life. And I remember this empty space was in my mind for a long time. It was a long time ago, but I remember that I opened the doors and closed the doors and thought what can I put inside now? The only thing I wanted to put inside was me. I didn’t go in the closet, but this thought was in my mind a long time. I wrote a short movie, named The Closet, and then it became a feature film.
AKT: I remember hiding in the closet as a child. It has something childlike too! A place where you can play.
MD: Yes! A little space where you feel safe! Under the table or in the closet. I remember my kids they built a tent with chairs. Also my boy under the sofa!
AKT: It’s protective space. And you capture that so nicely.
MD: A nest, a shell, a cocoon - this was my purpose.
 |
| Tina (Ancheta Aurelia Martin) the family’s maid sees Lisa (Monica Dugo) in the closet |
AKT: And the element of time, time to be left alone for a while.
MD: Yes, to take a break.
AKT: Because the world is so chaotic, especially now. You made the film post-COVID, I suppose, so that was also hovering.
MD: Yes.
AKT: I like how you used the gift basket in the beginning! You tell us so much, just with this basket. We learn about the vinegar, better but smaller than last year’s! We know that there’s a tradition, that they always get it. Also about the assistants, and first tiny hints about a possible affair. There is so much information in this one object!
MD: Oh, I like this! This is the first time someone pays attention to these details! I really believe it’s an important thing because it tells about this woman. That she cares about the little things. She likes chocolate and regrets that the husband gave that away.
AKT: Right, I remember thinking during that scene: How could he do that?
 |
| Sveva (Romana Maggiora Vergano) in the closet with her mother Lisa (Monica Dugo) |
MD: Maybe he doesn’t remember. I don’t think he gave it away with the intention to hurt her. But this is the first little thing that she feels. In one little thing we can see all of them.
AKT: Also the other family members, the kids.
MD: And she stays alone at the table with the little glass.
AKT: And everybody but her son disappears and doesn’t want the crème caramel she prepared. Even he walks away with his plate.
MD: And the moment the kids are gone, the basket has the power.
AKT: Another great moment, I thought, was when the little boy after the father leaves, complains: “I don’t want to eat with no one across from me.” A very perceptive line!
MD: I imagined that in a family of four when one person goes away, it’s like a table without one leg. There is a loss and if we are three of us, it’s a triangle and no longer a square. We can organise another pattern.
AKT: They have to. All the un-dealt-with issues come out in the film. Everything people push away comes out because of this turtle business. This is your first film directing?
 |
| Sveva (Romana Maggiora Vergano) with her boyfriend Luca (Francesco Gheghi) |
MD: Yes.
AKT: Are you working on another project?
MD: Yes, I have a mind full of projects! I’m writing two projects and I have to decide which is my need. What do I really need to tell at this moment? I started with an old story from the 1880s but it’s more difficult to make. I have another story of a woman and I don’t know if I want to repeat some themes. So I’m struggling with the decision. I’m writing both at the moment.
AKT: Maybe you’ll see both are one! Maybe it’s a time travel story? Thank you so much!
MD: No, thank you! You’re so precise, thank you very much.
