The efforts of a young woman held in semicustody and trying hard to reinstate into social life are constantly demolished by other people's arrogance and by a biased society which unjustly points to former prisoners as being disturbing, almost irredeemable elements. The public opinion (i.e. press) is prejudiced and dislikes persons being held in semicustody or having experienced detention for any reason.This movie is meant to be a metaphor; Alessandra's conquest, the achievement of a person living in half-freedom, is the symbol of everybody's goal in life...The "Gozzini law" rules have never been explored by cinema before. Dealing with this subject is therefore a completely new idea.The audience should be enabled to perceive the main character's efforts, toil and desire to hold the reins of her existence again. Therefore, she has to be a likeable character, so as not to make the public wish to send her back to prison...Marina's hopes have died down. She is forty and she has spent a longer time in jail for an ideal (be it right or wrong, it is not up to us to decide). She speaks the political jargon; her job is different from Alessandra's and she is more respected by society...Alessandra is a former drug trafficker...Marina is a former terrorist who has believed in violence aimed at achieving political aims...During her detention, she has experienced homosexual love.She neither knows what to do with her future existence nor what to expect from life. The only thing she is sure of is her love for Alessandra.

THE STYLE is fast: the clock beats time and the constant repetition of actions conveys the idea of exhaustion (the signatures, getting on and off streetcars, body searches, the semicustody division and police controls) and emphasizes the hardships one has to endure in order to cross the finishing line and eventually discover that, like Alessandra, one must do it all alone. Man is an all-surviving animal.

HARDNESS: at the end of each scene, characters are photographed emotionally, and stressing feelings of hatred-sympathy-incomprehension-solidarity-indifference, etc...

IRONY: in the most dramatically situations, man laughs to exorcise the conflict he is experiencing (see the Neapolitan school and Chaplain's style).

SENTIMENTALITY: in order to win, the main character uses the arms of seduction, which allow her to be loved. She needs to be trusted and therefore to be loved - a feeling which anyway I do not take for granted, not even at the end, so as not to fall in the cliché of the happy ending - because one cannot succeed alone (a metaphor), not even Alessandra. Nevertheless, the main character hopes to meet her own...Godot. (I have seen "Waiting for Godot" on stage at the Salone Pier Lombardo, with Beckett's direction; the actors where the lifers of the St. Quintin jail Drama Workshop). Nobody can express the anxiety felt in waiting for Godot better than a woman held in semicustody, who is therefore a prisoner in every respect.

A MOVIE DEEPLY PERMEATED WITH ATMOSPHERES of bright, radiant lights but also of back lighting, which emphasize the character's feelings and underline romanticism and solitude as well as the image of a running metropolis where everybody shuts himself up in his house...and sex...

ALL THE ACTORS are essential co-protagonists who must be able to fully convey the nature and personality of the screenplay characters. They go in and out of Alessandra's life. I do not think any of these characters is a nice role...but I believe in good actors skilled enough to enter the true spirit of their characters.

SEXUALITY is erotic and exciting but neither declines into vulgarity nor is it and end in itself. Mirrors and back lightning's will be used. When nakedness is total, it is humiliating (see body searches). To love Alessandra, the audience wants to see her constantly tested.

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE: is a common reality among prisoners. Alessandra's love for Marina is made up of bewilderment and hesitation, leading to a particular eroticism.

POLITICS has nothing to do with this movie. Marina is a more learned character. Alessandra thinks highly of her; her language is more prolix than Marina's. Marina uses few but incisive words. When Ale shows her indifference due to the fact that she wants to devour life, incomprehension interposes between the two cell-mates...Both women live their half-freedom by clinging to a love affair, regardless of the sex...Marina doesn't know what to do with her feature existence nor what to expect from life...Alessandra knows she wants abnormal house, a normal life, a job, a love relationship...Federico is a witty character; a woman who has spent many years in jail can only fall in love with a man inspiring honesty and clear-mindedness, but who is also cheerful, brilliant, tender and a little crazy. At the beginning Federico draws back, struck by fear...Then, realizing he is in love, he overcomes the obstacles created by commonplaces. Federico is Alessandra's hope...when he withdraws, the young woman yells to Franco out of despair.

DRUGS: Ale surrenders to Francis in exchange for a false freedom, that is the untrue possibility to flee with a forged passport. Francisis is introduced to Alessandra by Marina, who met him during the times of terrorism, when she hired gangsters. As a consequence, Marina knows him quite well and persuades her cell-mate to meet him when Ale gives vent to her frustration for her dashed hopes and her unrecorded efforts...After all, Marina does not believe Alessandra will ever succeed.

"JAILBIRDS"(TENTAZIONI METROPOLITANE) means I know for I hired him once...maybe he can help you...Alessandra's indifference is avenged through a bullet. It is quite different to be condemned to prison for trafficking drugs and for being a terrorist...Although a former terrorist is not approved of by society, he is respected... There are neither losers nor winners among the characters; as in the actual society, there are only different worlds...Alessandra works is out according to her particular situation and so does Marina...The same happens to all the characters...In real life, every person struggles in order to work out the problems that hinder the reaching of one's targets. Life is interpretation. Films are interpretations of life. Theatre is representation. Anybody can use this metaphor according to his personal discretion...Ale is a winner but she succeeds only after getting through all sorts of problems. She is no hero! She wants at all costs to live a life she has never experienced...But she is alone. Marina is too alone and moreover she falls in love with a woman who has not chosen lesbian love as way of life. (In jail, there was nothing else, no choice neither for Alessandra nor for Marina. Both women had always liked men, but lesbian relationships are a true revelation to Marina). Her attitude towards life is more disenchanted...And as fate is the ultimate expression of desire, Alessandra meets Federico...Facts prove the people who have to spend long periods in jail have few possibilities to overcome such a difficult phase of their life without the support of someone who loves them. A lonely person will easily fall down again...With someone's love, this will not happen.

MUSIC will be important; Italian and English Rock , blues and different folk

Thanks for reading these pages. GIANNA MARIA GARBELLI

COPYRIGHT (C)1997 all rights reserved GIANNA MARIA GARBELLI